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[b][u][center]A Whole New Party

Part 4

For Engy

By Draconicon[/center][/u][/b]

Despite having the greatest outward calm towards the disappointing open door, Olfel Darkbeard was fighting fury of his own at the waste of time getting here. Considering how far off the beaten track this particular dungeon was – he certainly had never heard of it, and that should tell everyone how little it mattered in the grand scheme of things – he doubted that there would be sufficient rewards from the dungeon to recoup their lost time. The numbers would scarcely add up, and after their humiliation on the bucket adventure, he had already made the decision to push their employer for more pay.

At least the rooster wasn’t coming with them. The dwarf glanced over his shoulder as the rest of the party dragged their gear off their horses, narrowing his eyes at the black-feathered cock sitting on the wizard’s saddle. ‘Croon’, Kyo-Thar called the miserable beast. Bane of his Existence, Olfel thought of it as. Crooning was the one noise he could have stood from it, and the wailing and calling and near cackling it did with its constant warblings had all but driven him out of his mind.

[i]One day, bird. One day.[/i]

He fixed the rooster with a deadly stare, and the dumb beast only looked back at him with another ba-ca. He gripped his braided beard, all but tugged it out of his chin, and turned back to the open door.

“Hmmm…”

“Olfel!”

Viola. He smiled slightly at the irritation in her voice; it always meant that she was slightly less focused, less intent on him. Always good for taking a little more free action. The dwarf turned around.

“Yes, Viola?”

“Scout ahead. I want a map of the next three rooms in ten minutes.”

“Only that?”

“Line your pockets as you like. Call it hazard pay.”

Hardly a hazard, but he wasn’t one to turn down extra money. He nodded, bowing slightly at the waist, before turning back to the dungeon. Whistling a little tune, he summoned a ball of light to hover slightly in front of him, about three feet. Enough to see where he was going, and more importantly, to draw any negative attention to the path ahead rather than directly to him.

[i]Rule one of barding. Never be where a thrown tomato can hit you, or an arrow.[/i]

The rules of barding were hardly serious, and the dwarf was reasonably sure that their joking nature had caused the deaths of more than a few dwarves over the years. That said, they had their points, and the first rule had saved his life more than once. A bad performance, whether on the stage or in the dungeons, was a good way to an early grave. And he had no intention of dying before all his profit could be found.

He stepped inside the dungeon. The first room was, unsurprisingly, empty. Reaching behind his back to one of his pouches, he pulled out a scrap of paper and began noting down a rough outline. Simple square room, a small altar in the middle. A second glance at the altar confirmed that there were some gems left out on it, minor loot, not much more than rough onyx. Probably no more than a couple of gold for the whole lot, but likely cursed given that they were in a weighted bowl in the middle of the altar. Cursed or –

No, not cursed, trapped. He made another note about the spiked panel in the ceiling, marked out the door on the far end, and continued on.

The second room was hardly better, though he heard the tell-tale scurrying sound of something moving from one room to another as he approached. The light cast a shining blue on the bigger chamber, and he cocked his head to the side, curving a hand around his ear. Soft footsteps, a little scrabble of claws. Not goblins or orcs, then, but probably something more scaly, something more bestial.

That was slightly encouraging. If there were kobolds – and it sounded too small to be lizardfolk, so very likely to be kobolds – then that meant that there was a distinct possibility of a dragon deep down in this dungeon.

A young one, admittedly, but still a dragon. Big ones could not have gotten through these narrow doorways, and he doubted that this one would have been capable of shapeshifting just yet. A proper dragon hoard would have spilled out to these rooms by now, but even a young dragon would have plenty for them to take.

[i]Perhaps this won’t be so useless, after all.[/i]

Olfel walked around the room, mapping it out as he had done the first. It was five-walled rather than four, with the ‘top’ two leading to a branching path. The black-bearded dwarf looked between the two doors, sighing. Viola would want them all mapped, and that meant exploring further than he liked doing alone.

However, the potential for profit and information drove him. Glancing back at the second room again, ensuring that he had everything – two large bookcases that were potentially trapped, but filled with various ruined and half-ruined books that should be catalogued, as well as a well in the floor of the chamber that looked like it could be a puzzle – he turned to the left-hand door. A quick glance at the dusty floor confirmed that nobody had run off in this direction, and he poked the light through.

The minute he did, a curse went off. The light fizzled and popped, almost like some beast that had been caught in the middle of a lightning bolt spell. He stopped in his tracks, staring straight ahead.

“…Well, then.”

He whistled up another light spell, sending it through. Just like the first one, it popped, zapped to bits by whatever magical field was waiting for them in that direction. This time, however, he felt the power behind it. Significant, far more significant than the average spell that would have been laid on a dungeon this far away from anyone else. Probably slightly under Kyo’Thar’s level, as a matter of fact.

Theoretically, he could have dispelled it with some time put toward it, but the idea of sticking around for that long when he only had ten minutes didn’t sit well with him. He shook his head, turning to the other doorway.

Clear footprints led through the other door, and the small size confirmed that they were just kobolds. He tapped his chin, then started whistling another tune. Time to see what he could find out about what they were planning.

As he whistled, the tune began to call upon the old ethics of dwarves. The deep mines, the bright gold, the fine, exact work that they did with their tools on metal and stone: it all came together, and gradually formed an illusion of someone that looked just like him. Olfel looked at his double, continuing to whistle as a dwarf would do going to work, and then directed it through the archway.

No sooner had it stepped through than four kobolds lunged for it. They held something that sparkled in their hands, but as they charged an illusion rather than something real, all they managed to do was bang into each other. A quadruple headbutt later, they fell to the floor, conked out.

[i]Ah, stupidity. Is there anything more fun to mess with?[/i]

With the illusion proving two points – that the room was empty of any stupid enemies and that there wasn’t a magic trap on the other side – Olfel stepped through, carrying his notebook with him. The illusion moved forward, carrying a bit of magical light with it as it did, and he looked at what the kobolds had been guarding.

The answer appeared to be one of the forward armories. A few weapons sized for the smaller reptiles lined the walls, as did whips, chains, ropes, and other restraints. So, a partial prison, a holding area for anyone that came trespassing before they could be brought further in for proper imprisonment.

Organized, he’d give it that. Was that down to a partial mutation of the local kobolds, or had there been something else that had come down and organized them once upon a time? He could hardly credit the sleeping idiots on the floor with the same brains that it would have taken to organize this dungeon like this.

Not to mention the magic that was lingering in the branching chamber. Powerful as some kobolds could get with their latent magic, that was beyond most of them. The dwarf shook his head, mapping out this room. Two more branching paths, one that looked like it led to a holding cell, one that connected to a hallway that led further into the dungeon.

Then he looked down at the devices that the kobolds had been carrying. Not rope, as he had originally thought, but fine wire that led to collars and shackles. Pulling his gloves tight, the dwarf lifted one of the wires, shaking his head.

[i]Enchanted, alright…and not the light kind.[/i]

Slave bands, they were called. Not usually this fine, either. He narrowed his eyes as a familiar tingle covered the wire.

A sharp, piercing whistle that served as his Countersong punched through the illusion. The wire and fancy collar faded to a rope and rusted chain. It had been covered up, made to look better than it was.

[i]Hmmm…someone in this dungeon is screwing with us…[/i]

Shaking his head, he stood up. There wasn’t much in the armory that looked of any value, though he did see a glass dagger that looked ceremonial enough to keep. He pulled it off the wall and – after a cursory examination for curses – tucked it into his belt. The more that he saw in this dungeon, the more puzzled he became…and the more intrigued he felt, at the same time.

That mapped out the first three chambers, and that, he felt, meant that he could go back to the rest of the group. Viola would want to know about how strange this was, and Red-Arms could be distracted with the bodies waiting for him here. Kyo’Thar would want to experiment on the barrier, and that…

That would give him privacy. Privacy to see if he could push past Viola’s little social barriers. Privacy to see if she might have a little weak spot showing after the long, frustrating trek up here.

After all, he had power as the accountant of the group. However, he was always looking to rise to the next station, and he certainly would gain greater profit by being the one to control the group. She had declined a few too many prosperous contracts for his taste until now.

#

Mandred didn’t like his name. It had been the name of someone that had been told that there was something wrong with him over and over and over again. Time after time, he had been lectured on his anger, on how he lashed out at others. His name, in and of itself, was almost a curse. He was a man to be dreaded. He was a man that caused it. Man-Dread. Mandred. To him, there was no difference.

No, the monk much preferred the nickname that he had been given, much as others might prefer his real one. It suited him, after all. Red-Arms. That was what he was, a man with red arms, stained after he found what soothed him.

“Hey, Red-Arms.”

He looked up from his half-meditation over his tools, pausing in his threading of the brass knuckles across his fists. The dwarf had returned. The quiet one. The irritating and soothing one at the same time. Irritating for the numbers he spouted, soothing for finding the bodies that he could play with.

“There’s some unconscious kobolds in there,” the dwarf said. “Why don’t you go and keep them from waking up?”

“…Thank you.”

Red-Arms smiled, leaving the horses behind. The dwarf continued speaking as he walked away, but as none of it was addressed at him, and as Viola had not called him back, he didn’t listen. He was called.

[i]Blood.[/i]

His arms almost ached with the thought of more, hungry for another coat. Would theirs be red? He hadn’t done much with kobolds; he had been too strong for their dungeons, and there was little sport in hunting those too weak. Not that he cared for the sport. He cared for the blood.

[i]Blood.[/i]

Hunger, pulling, pulsing. He sped up, walking on silent tiptoes as he made his way into the dark. The altar didn’t matter, nor did the second room with its books. He could almost smell the scaled ones ahead, and he sped up, moving from one room to the next –

But there was nothing to be found.

Red-Arms glanced at the floor. The impact of the bodies in the dust was still there, as were obvious restraints. The kobolds themselves, however, were nowhere to be seen. There was nothing to show where they had gone, either, no tracks through the dirt, no feeling in the air of disturbed energies.

Nothing.

At.

All.

It…disturbed him, for lack of a better word. The itching hunger in his arms grew, disturbed by the lack of blood. Red-Arms turned from side to side, looking at the ground, then at the air around him, almost as if expecting a target to appear.

Had Olfel lied? No, there was no profit to the dwarf to do that. He would not be best served by an angry monk, particularly one that needed the satisfaction of the blood. He had not lied about targets before.

That meant that something else had come…something else had taken his prey. He growled under his breath.

Holding cell off to the side. They could be hiding. He should check before getting angrier. If he could. If that was possible.

With rage rising, he stepped through the door to the holding cells. A shadow moved on the wall, and Red-Arms leaped after it.

CRACK!

His brass knuckles crashed against the wall, shattering stone and going a full six inches in. His hand was scratched from the precise strike, but his blood did not satisfy. It never had, even when he had cut at himself back then, even when he used to feel that he might be better off without the weapons that scared people.

Pulling his hand back slowly, he saw that the shadow had come from a hanging chain, not a moving person. He shook his head. A pity. He would have liked – liked to –

Something else. Something stirring in the room. Someone invisible? Or just someone watching? It was hard to tell and harder to focus with the hunger growing. He growled under his breath, a sound that was more fitting for a beast than a man, and slowly turned in place. Closing his eyes, trying to center himself, he felt the chains in the room slowly stroking over his shoulders with every turn, every shift in movement.

There was something wrong here. Something very, very wrong. And thankfully for him, he realized what it was before the chains truly came to life.

He moved at blurring speed, a single chop cutting the first metal chain that tried to coil around his neck like a snake or a noose. Kicking upwards to keep the other chains from drawing tight around his shoulders, he spun, focusing red [i]chi[/i] down his arms and striking with the precision that only a monk could manage. Chain after chain broke from his touch, falling in links to the ground.

The trap was disarmed, yet he still ached…and tingled…

#

With Kyo’Thar more interested in playing with the trapped doorway in the dungeon and Red-Arms out of the way, Olfel finally had an opportunity to talk to Viola again. This time, however, he made sure to stand on the other side of her horse, out of punching range. Paying that cleric to replace his teeth last time had been…costly, and he didn’t want to deal with that sort of outflow again.

“You have the map, then?” Viola asked as she went through the process of shifting out scale armor for plate armor. “I don’t want any delays.”

“I have it, but I thought we could talk terms.”

“Oh, fuck, not this again.”

“I do believe that I have greater standing than you.”

“Peasant fighter, fucking bard of the greats, are we seriously going through this bullshit again?”

“I [i]am[/i] the one that finds most of our contracts, Viola, if you recall. I am the one that keeps us in coin.”

“And I’m the one that keeps the other two from killing you.”

“I could easily handle myself. Red-Arms is a beast, little more. And Kyo’Thar can be bought.”

Not cheaply, of course, and that was why he hadn’t tried to stage a coup just yet. Olfel was well-aware of how much the wizard valued his skills, and at what rate he sold them. It was something of a marvel that Viola had managed to keep the other two under her thumb as well as she had.

The warrior woman looked back at him again, shaking her head. Clearly, she did not believe him. Whatever her training, she looked down at him the way that she always complained of others looking down on her. Men looking down at a woman, a warrior looking down at a bard. Quite hypocritical, really.

Olfel shook his head.

“I’ve been looking into your past again, you know.”

“Leave it.”

“I doubt that anyone could. I know you haven’t.”

“You want to lose another tooth?”

[i]Not really, but you’re already riled up. A little self-sabotage would not go amiss.[/i]

He crossed his arms, forcing a smile through his beard. It was a little harder than he liked as she armed herself with that damned heavy double-hander that she carried everywhere.

“I’m just saying. You are weighed down by all those considerations, all those old teachings. Nobody else has been allowed to know what your training even consisted of. Perhaps it would be better for you to just be a soldier rather than a commander.”

“And let a bard like you tell me what to do? No fucking thanks.”

“It would hardly be that great a change. Come on, just consider it.”

“I did, last time. You want to keep talking?”

“Last time, you punched me in the teeth. I wouldn’t call that listening, Viola. Or was that how you treated everyone that disagreed with you? Anyone that offers a different point of view gets punched down? Is that the act of an officer, let alone a general?”

She had gone stiff. Not happy, not yet furious enough to lash out. He was treading a dangerous line, one that might very well end up with him needing a cleric without even seeing an enemy in the dungeon, but it was better than how this had gone last time. He just hoped that he’d dug up enough information to really start knocking her for a loop.

“Secretive as could be. The only proof that you ever had any training written in a scroll that you don’t allow us to see. Perhaps that scroll means nothing. Perhaps you, for all your skills, are [i]nothing,[/i] nothing but a little beggar that knows how to swing a sword around.”

“Shut…up…”

“Is there a point in you commanding us? You have kept us alive at times, I grant you, but would we have been in those situations without your inelegant leadership? I am the one that informs you. I am the one that supplies you with the right connections. Perhaps it is time that we just cut out the middleman, Viola.”

“Olfel?”

“Yes?”

“You’re a piece of shit. Quarter?”

Quarter was her horse. He blinked.

“Fore-kick.”

And just like that, the hind hoof of her horse lifted off the ground and kicked him in the guts. Olfel fell backwards with a harsh whoosh of air going through his teeth, and rolled onto his side, clutching his stomach.

“Never again, Olfel. You get me? You try that again, and I’m going to pin you to the ground with my sword through your guts until you learn your lesson.”

“Mmmph…noted…”

“Now, the map?”

Holding out the three pages that had been folded together, he waited until Viola took the papers before rolling onto his back. He took several deep breaths, forcing his body to start getting used to having air inside again. The horse had, thankfully, not broken anything, but the blow had still hit hard. Just soft tissue, however. Nothing serious, nothing damaged as far as he could tell.

That had, however, told him that his usual manipulations still weren’t working. She didn’t break down when she was approached with the sort of slow-break and confidence killers that he was used to using on others. Many dwarves that had been exposed to his methods had fallen down quickly, eager to give up what they knew to avoid being made to feel worse.

Viola, on the other hand, seemed to be all too aware of her own self-loathing, her own weaknesses, her own problems. That was keeping his techniques from working. Either he needed something big, some new bit of dirt, or he would need to find another technique.

He would find it, whatever it was. His own secondary position was becoming irksome, just as his position under the mountain among the dwarves had been. The little bonuses and awards that he had gotten from the House leader had been less than sufficient to keep his attention. He needed [i]more.[/i]

When he could breathe normally again, he dragged himself upright, rolling onto his knees, and then pulled himself to his feet. Viola was fully equipped by then, and she shook her head at the map.

“That bad?”

“Which?” he muttered.

“The cursed doorway.”

“Pretty bad. It killed every spell I sent through it.”

“And people?”

“Didn’t test that.”

“Why didn’t you throw a kobold through it?”

“I was in a hurry.”

“To get me alone again, apparently.”

[i]I keep forgetting you’re not a total idiot.[/i] Even so, he shrugged.

“Kyo’Thar shouldn’t have any issue with –”

WHOOMPF!

The sudden concussive explosion was followed by a surge of black smoke blowing out of the dungeon. Human and dwarf leaped into action, running inside.

To their surprise, they found Kyo’Thar and Red-Arms both fighting cursed things. The smoke had come from a fireball, it was clear, and the wizard continued to contend with the cursed doorway, while Red-Arms was fighting a series of chains that had come from the armory. The two of them were being pushed back, slowly, but they were giving as good as they got.

“Chains or curse?” Olfel asked.

“Chains.”

“I’ll take the curse.”

He jogged over to the wizard, who was pinning his staff. The orc looked down at him, snorting.

“What was that about an easy curse, hmm?”

“Everyone can make a mistake. What’s going on?”

“It is a double-layered defense. There is a cursed amplifier of corruption upon it, which sends anything –”

“Better question. What do you need?” Olfel asked as the clink-clank of Viola’s sword against the chains filled the air.

“Countersong.”

“Can do.”

And with that, Olfel started singing. Not just whistling this time, but singing in the way of a dwarf deep down in the mines. The sound echoed through the stone, called up from the deep, and the rumbling sound forced the curse to reveal itself.

He could almost see the runic structure of the written curse in the air. It was written in two languages, one more common, the other obviously more magical. He planned on asking Kyo’Thar what it was, later. That sort of knowledge looked important.

The magical language squirmed as he kept up the low throat-singing that he was doing, the Countersong warring with the deep magic layer. As they pressed together, Kyo’Thar swayed his staff from side to side, muttering his own spell over it. The greenskin gestured outwards, the other words of the spell caught on the edge of his staff, pulled upwards and away from the doorframe.

As the glowing lights settled into the staff, almost absorbing into the wood, the doorway settled. The feeling of tingling power in the air disappeared. At least, from their side of the room.

Hearing the particular ‘clang’ of super-heated metal shattering, Olfel ducked. Kyo’Thar didn’t.

As the orc went flying across the room, hitting the wall with a loud thump, Olfel felt some satisfaction in seeing the rooster-lover catching fire. It was no serious danger, considering the orc’s magical talents, but it was still somewhat satisfying to see the annoying ass getting a bit of a singe from all that he had gone through. Shaking his head, he looked back at the other fight.

Viola and Red-Arms had finished dealing with the chains, it seemed, cutting them into lengths that were no longer than garden snakes. The fragments shivered for a moment, then went still as the curse seemed to go out of them. The fighters shook their heads, panting softly. The woman put her blade away, and the monk shook his head, lowering his arms.

“Did you find the kobolds, Red-Arms?” Olfel asked.

“No.”

“What do you mean, no? They were right in there.”

“They were not when I got there.”

“…Oh.”

“Yes. Oh.”

Olfel braced himself, waiting for the surge of rage that usually followed an inability to kill, but strangely, no such thing happened. The monk’s shoulders rose and fell in obvious frustration and anger, he was panting hard, yes, but he was still holding some kind of control of himself, something that went beyond what he was usually able to do.

[i]Something’s changed,[/i] Olfel realized. [i]Either my luck or his way of working, but something has changed.[/i]

“Which way goes deeper?” Viola asked.

“We haven’t explored the one with the cursed door, but with that curse…”

“I would suggest the other one,” Kyo’Thar admitted. “There was a stronger curse on this door than I expected, and I would not wish to fight another one if I do not have to.”

“…That bad?” Viola asked.

“Quite.”

“…Down the other way it is, then,” she muttered. “Anything we need to be worried about?”

“Curses and kobolds,” Olfel said. “And maybe a dragon.”

#

Audron leaned back on the meager hoard of gold that he had managed to put together for the dungeon. It wasn’t like the platinum treasure that his mother kept for herself, or what all the other dragons in his family had, but it would do as a suitable bit of bait for the adventurers, he hoped. They would come here, eager for the pay, and they’d be pushing forward too fast to really pay attention to all the tricks and traps that he put in their way, or be too cruel to the different monsters in the dungeon.

That had been the plan, but it hadn’t quite gone the way that he’d hoped. Seeing the dwarf knock out the kobolds had been fair enough – though he’d wished that he could have gotten the submission curses onto the bard – but seeing him leave with the intent of killing the kobolds had been too much. He’d reached out and pulled the loyal servants out of harm’s way, and had ended up needing to use more traps right off the bat than he’d really wanted to.

On the plus side, the chains had done their job of starting to infect the monk with various spells of submission and obedience. It wasn’t a full application just yet, but it was a start. The monk was not trying to kill the dwarf, for example, which meant that they were definitely getting on the right track.

That, and the cursed layers of protection on the door had done something, too. He’d seen how the orc had tried to completely dispel that, and it had ended up being absorbed into the wizard’s staff, instead. Again, it wasn’t a complete sort of effect, and the orc would need much more in the way of correction, but that was a good start.

Audron took a deep breath as he laid back, trying to get his head in order for what would need to come next. He was supposed to be the boss of the dungeon, and he’d never done something like that before. Should he play it off as a good dragon protecting its hoard and lands? Or should he be more like a fallen dragon, something that would encourage the evil party to try and submit to him, or, if they wanted to keep their independence, do something ‘good’ to keep it?

Oh, that was a good idea. He was pretty sure that his family would think him pretty brilliant for that one. Yeah, pretending to be evil was a good idea at the moment, because that would mean that they’d have to admit that they did something [i]good[/i] by ‘killing’ him.

That part…he still needed to work that out. The bard had obviously figured out some of his illusions, which meant that the next ones needed to be a fair bit stronger. No point in casting spells that someone was just going to see through, particularly when he needed to imitate being dead.

[i]Can I get away with being two-legged?[/i]

He looked at himself, then winced and shook his head.

[i]No, no way. They’ll never believe that someone strong enough to change shape to this would be willing to stick around a lousy little place like this. Gonna have to go feral for this one.[/i]

That was going to raise questions, too, but hopefully, at least one of them would just take it as the way that this particular dungeon worked. There were plenty of weird things that happened in dungeons, that [i]only[/i] happened in dungeons, and he doubted that there’d be anything that they would question that closely.

As he thought it through, one of the kobolds that he rescued came running up. The little green lizard hugged his leg, nuzzling.

“Heh, what’s going on?” Audron asked.

“Just thanking you.”

“No problem.”

“Oh, and baddies halfway here.”

“What?!”

“Yeah, coming down hall, coming [i]fast.[/i]”

“…Okay. Looks like I have to speed this up.”

[b][u][center]The End[/center][/u][/b]

Summary: The evil party starts to explore the dungeon, and rapidly finds that it’s different than they expected.

Tags: no sex, chains, curses, dungeon, D&D world, fantasy, series, evil party, machinations, dwarf, human, dragon, kobold, fighting, magic,