Samuel Graves and the Akemic Chronicles

Victory! Kind of...?

After searching several more rooms (and finding nothing of value, much to Needles consternation) they’d come to a not-so-unusual thing to see when exploring a half-sunken keep.

A split in the hallway. One path stretched to the east, the other to the west. Not impressive, all things considered. No, what was impressive was that they were asking for directions.

From a skeleton.

The torchlight coming off the cudgel was what revealed it first, making Wheeze pause at the sight of it.

Spread out as if emerging from a wall of mud, a skeleton was partially embedded in the stone blocks making up the wall at the intersection. Its arms were stretched out as if it’d been crucified, and a loose bit of frayed rope tied into a noose hung from around it’s neck. The thing’s head had been hanging limply, rising when the flickering light washed over it to reveal the yellowed skull. It has glowered, a faint azure light burning deep within the darkness of the bare sockets.

“What do you want?” It’d asked, voice a dry rasp of a whisper that didn’t sound right. The voice was scratchy, the words spoken as if they were being read backwards. Samuel rubbed at his eyes as it spoke, as he felt a sudden pressure from behind them.

Wheeze had responded in a… surprisingly intelligent fashion. “Oh no. Hell no. I am not talking to that thing, Sammy! Talk to the corpse!”

And that is what he’d been doing now for the past five minutes. The thing was rude, but he felt that if it were stuck here in such a fashion, it obviously would know some things.

“All I’m asking for are directions to whatever would be considered a kitchen.” Samuel explained for the third time. “I’m not going to kill you, so jus chill out and help me out here!”

“And all I’m asking for is for you to cut my f*****g head off, you sorry excuse for what your mother should have swallowed!” The skeleton swore, hissing out the words. “I get you like being tied up and being ridden like the tired mule you are, but I just want to get on to wherever Mostef will drag my sorry carcass! Cut my head off and be done with it!”

“Jesus… where have you even heard half these insults, you rotten heap of bones?” Samuel exclaimed, amazed at the thing’s vocabulary.

“Listen you sorry excuse for a used dildo, I’m not here to amuse you! I’m here because the asshat who runs this place thinks I deserve to be punished! Now kill me before he shows up, you sperm-belching monkey!”

“Holy s**t…” Samuel laughed, taken aback by the utter waterfall of insults before he caught what had just been said. “Wait, hold on… someone runs this place?”

Wheeze grumbled as well. “This is a place that can be run?”

The skeleton glowered. “You want information, eh? Well I ain’t talking unless ya’ll kill me. I’ve been here for longer than I can remember, and I’m not keen on remaining! You sorry f***s may want to come down here and get sacrificed, but I just want to die and be done with it!”

“Sacrificed?” Samuel echoed, Skelly finally stepping up with a frown on his wrinkled face.

“Just choose a path and ignore the thing or kill it like it wants. Either way, we are wasting time just standing around interrogating an undead.” He said, glaring at the skeleton. “Night is approaching, and I can’t imagine this is a place that gets better at night…”

It glared back. “No, you think?” It taunted. “Yeah, gramps here is right. This place gets worse when the sun goes down. The past sacrifices come out and get handsy… and not just with the living. So, if you would be so kind, could you please CUT MY DAMN HEAD OFF?”

Skelly snatched the cudgel-torch from Samuel with a muttered “honestly?” before striking the mouthy skeleton with a bone-crushing crack!

The skull, fractured and caved in, crumbled away from the main body, the neck going slack as the energy animating it was dispersed. Samuel glared at the old Druid. “He could have been useful if you’d given me a few more minutes of working on him! I bet he knew where the kitchen is!”

“He wasn’t talking,” Skelly replied, studying the embedded corpse. “Besides, he was an undead. They can’t be trusted to be helpful, especially to anyone with a pulse. All undead hate the living.”

Samuel looked back at Needles, eyebrow raised in question. The warrior sighed, nodding. “Yeah,” he said, scratching Nev between the ears. “They ain’t to be trusted, ‘specially the talkative ones.”

“If that’s true,” Samuel growled, turning back to Skelly, “then killing him may have been a mistake! What if it started a trap or something?”

Skelly shook his head. “I can sense magic, nothing was connected to him. He was just here because he was stuck here, not to serve as a trap or alarm or anything.”

“Why would someone stick him here otherwise?” Samuel demanded, waving at the embedded corpse. “I mean, look! He’s obviously been forced into the wall with magic of some kind, right? No way he came with the blocks that built this place!”

Wheeze studied the body, whistling as he did so. “Yeah, ‘e’s stuck in there good an’ proper!”

“Perhaps as punishment?” Skelly guessed, shrugging. “I have no clue. But I don’t want to waste anymore time. The kitchen has to be around here somewhere, this place can’t be that much bigger than what we’ve already found.”

“There’ve been like a dozen rooms so far,” Samuel said. “All sealed, all with nothing in them save the one with the altar. Something is weird here.”

“Namely all of it?” Needles joked.

Samuel rolled his eyes. “Look, I’m just saying! This is all weird, and it just keeps getting more bizarre! We need to be careful and stop rushing!”

“You heard the skeleton.” Skelly said, motioning to the shattered face. “There were sacrifices here. And they apparently roam about when the sun goes down. That will likely not be a fight we wish to face, so again: can we please move on already?”

“I’m goin’, I’m goin’…” Wheeze griped, starting down the eastern hallway. “Come on then!”

Skelly passed the torch off to Samuel, nodding at the frowning teen as he passed him. “Be wary. Just because I’m rushing us doesn’t mean I think what you’re saying is wrong. It just means I don’t want to press our luck in having to sneak past the Trog tribe when we leave to make camp for the night.”

Samuel frowned. Damn, that’s a good point. I bet they can see in the dark or something, being part reptile… “Okay, fair point. Let’s roll…”

The next few minutes were spent in relative silence, the constant sound of dripping water and the crackling of the flames on the torch notwithstanding. A few squeaks could be heard coming from the shadows every once in a while, gave the entire group a jump whenever heard, and Posnev’s constant whimpering wasn’t helping their nerves.

Stopping a set of double doors that had already been splintered open, Wheeze let out a low whistle. “First big room we got, stay ready!”

Samuel ducked under the partially battered door after Wheeze, wincing as he chest dipped into the chilly water. “Goddamn, this water is cold!”

“Tell me ‘bout it,” Wheeze agreed, looking around the chamber. “Los’ feelin’ in my legs a while ago.”

“Same here…” Needles said, ducking into the room as well. “You’re lucky you have the torch, I bet you can feel your fingers. Mine are like ice!”

Samuel chuckled as he studied the chamber. It was large, probably not properly under the above floors judging by the domed roof that was easily thirty feet high at the apex. Rusted chains dangled across the room, shadows jumping about as Samuel moved the torch. They ended in massive meat hooks, many still holding up a bones barely held together by rotted flesh not yet gone. The far wall had a large furnace built into it dominating half the room, and a massive stone table sat off to the side with hundreds of bones and rolls of dusty twine stacked high.

“Think we found where the guy making all the arts and crafts projects works.” Samuel said aloud, sloshing closer to the table. “Doesn’t look like he’s been here for a while.”

“Spread out and look around.” Skelly said, patting Nev’s head as the dogs whined next to him. “This is likely the kitchen, only room we’ve found with anything in it after all…”

“Wish the mutt was here…” Needles said with a grimace. “I’m s**t at finding secret doors.”

“Better than me, most likely.” Samuel said, walking along the walls. He fished out a silver coin and frowned. “Think this would work like her little hammer she used?”

“Probably?” Wheeze said, examining one of the rotted torsos still attached to a chain. “Never been good at tha’ meself.”

“Well aware.” Needles groaned. “Only time you find a secret is when you step in one.”

“Oh, tha’ reminds me, be careful and watch yer feet!” Wheeze said as if struck with inspiration. “Remember the bear traps up top!”

“That… huh, we haven’t encountered anymore of those, have we?” Samuel said, stopping at a section of wall to tap with the coin and listen. “I think the Trogs were the ones using the traps, whoever is down here doesn’t seem to care enough to bother.”

“What ya mean?” Wheeze asked, looking over at him,

Samuel shrugged. “Skelly has been bitching about us making noise, but we’ve been pretty loud. Nothing has come running after us, so there aren’t guards beyond the Wights. Add to the fact we haven’t found a single trap, and it seems like whoever runs the place down here doesn’t care to defend it.”

“Or they trusted the Wights…” Needles countered, stopping at the furnace.

“Would you?” Samuel laughed, shaking his head. “We handled them pretty easy, even with me making a mistake.”

“Huh… that’s true, isn’t it?” Needles asked, wrenching the furnace open to look inside. “Hey, bring the light over would you?”

Samuel stopped his tapping and sloshed over to the warrior, cudgel held high. “Find something?”

“A big cloud of dust came out,” Needles said. “Not ash, mind you. Dust. And it came out when the air pressure changed.”

“So?” Wheeze asked as Skelly rushed forward, Posnev on his heels.

“So,” Needles said, smiling as the light washed over the narrow, dry tunnel behind the furnace that had been revealed. “We found the secret passage.”

“How are we going to fit through that?” Samuel asked.

Wheeze shook his head. “Not the righ’ question, more like why would we head down? Look!”

Samuel looked down the narrow, hidden hall and frowned.

He was right, they ended in a stairwell, going down. He turned back to Wheeze and sighed. “At least it isn’t flooded… maybe we can warm up and dry off while we are down there.”

“I don’t see any reason to go deeper, we were trying to find a way out, remember?” Needles exclaimed, looking at Skelly. “Remember?”

Skelly sighed. “I agree, we were attempting to leave. But… we have a path downward, and we haven’t exactly found a way up yet, have we?”

“So we descend further into this madness?” Needles demanded, crossing his arms in front of himself. “Hell. No. This is a mistake, you hear me?”

“Needles, the goal to our mission is likely down those very stairs!” Skelly argued. “And like Samuel said, it isn’t flooded, so we will likely find a spot we can rest for a moment if need be, maybe even camp at! Do you really want to press our luck trying to sneak past a tribe of Trogs to get out of here?”

Needles looked as if he’d eaten a lemon, rind and all. “No.” He finally said, glowering. “I see your point… but this is stupid, mark my words.”

“Consider them marked,” Samuel said, slapping him on the back. “Now break out your tools, we have to dismantle the furnace wall just to get through.”

He grumbled but complied. Between the four of them they were able to dismantle the front of the furnace, halfway through finding the mechanism that made it open as if it were a simple door. The entire time Samuel made certain to keep watch down the hidden passage, in case anything came lumbering up out of the darkness.

Once cleared, they all climbed into the raised passage out of the water, shaking the excess fluid out of their clothing as they all lumbered down the passage, the stench of wet dog plaguing them as Posnev shook his heavy fur coat about wildly.