Cenotaph of Bones: Chapter 34 (Patreon)

Chapter 34: Upward

Bouncing down the tube of slick rock might have been fun, if I wasn’t in pure darkness, and wearing plate armor.  Every twist and turn seemed to be at just the right angle to bounce my helmeted head off the side, or bang an elbow or knee, and I never saw it coming.  I was cycling wood qi to get the stars flashing across my vision from blinding me when I finally shot free of the tube.

Smacking into an underground lake of frigid black water at extremely high speeds didn’t make me any happier.  On the positive side, the impact was hard enough to cause my shields to flare brightly, illuminating the space I found myself in for a split second before I went under.  It was an onion-shaped cavern, and the ceiling was pockmarked with holes.  I wasn’t able to see much else before I went under water.

“Over here!”  Jamila shouted to me as I broke the surface, and I started swimming in her direction.  The light from my shields had disappeared quickly, but not before I saw where Jamila was waving for me on a small island in the center of the lake.  “It gets shallow enough for you to stand once you get close!”

I paddled over to where I knew she was standing, struggling to keep my head above water.  The island made the small underground lake seem more like a donut, and I quickly made my way onto dry land.  Jamila lit a torch, and we both peered at our surroundings while the cold water dripped loudly onto the rocky shore.

“Well, that was exciting.”  I made sure to lay the sarcasm on pretty thick.  “I sure am glad we talked about what to do once we got through the tube, and discussed in detail what to look for once we arrived.”

“Don’t be such a wimp.  I bet some people would pay good money just to go down a water-slicked tube at high speeds.”  Jamila pointed up to the general area we had come in from.  “And the way you splashed down at the end?  The only thing that could have made it any better was if I could have seen your face without your helmet on.”

“Pay money for that?  I think you’re exaggerating a bit.  Only a lunatic would have fun banging their head and body off a bunch of walls, just to slam into water hard enough it almost felt like hitting a brick wall.”  I shook my head, thinking about how ridiculous that would be.  “Anyway, do you have any plans for getting out of here?  I’m not seeing any obvious exits.”

“See that?”  She pointed to a pile of brittle fibers piled on the ground.  “I think that used to be a rope.”  We both walked over to it, and I kicked at it.  If it was an old rope, it was so old it had become unrecognizable.  “Remember how that well was dry?  I think this is why.  Their mining operations cut off the flows that refilled this cave, and when the water dropped too low, their bucket hit this dry patch of ground.”

“That would have to be one really long rope to be from the chamber we were in.”  I looked up, trying to see a corresponding tube that matched the location of the rope.  “That means they probably had a very large bucket, to make it fewer times they had to haul it up the well.”

“There, it has to be that one.”  Jamila pointed to a hole that was off-center, and larger than most of the others we could see.  “It has marks along the rim, meaning something passed through it many times.”

It was too high to check it closely, but it was the best option we had.  We moved to the edge of the island and tried tossing some glow stones up to try and get a better look.  It didn’t reveal any new information, beyond showing us how difficult it was going to be to get up there.

“Well, we could lift the ground up to it, and use the climb to cultivate back the energy.”  I looked at the ground under my feet, trying to gauge how difficult it would be.  “The island might be too small to provide a big enough platform for both of us, so we should-”  Jamila’s katana flashed past my face, imbedding itself in the rock above our heads.  It was trailing a thin cord that led back to Jamila’s hand.  “Or, we could just climb up there.”

“That’s what I was thinking.”  She gave me a smirk, and started climbing up hand over hand.  I waited until she reached the vertical shaft and began shuffling up to make room for me.  The shaft was just large enough that she could push her shoulders against one side, and her feet on the other, managing to ‘walk’ up the slick rock.  It looked very uncomfortable, and Jamila had to use her hands to keep herself from sliding down.  Her armor wasn’t the best at creating friction against the rock.

After I climbed up, I grabbed her katana and passed it up to her after wedging myself like she had done.  Since I was taller, it wasn’t nearly as uncomfortable for me.  Fortunately, difficulty was never a deterrent to Jamila.  She struggled upward, circulating the qi in her heart core to give her strength and to stave off exhaustion.  We climbed for over an hour before stopping to take a break.  I used my spirit wood ring to create a place for us to stand, balancing precariously on the walking stick form that I wedged against either side.

“I gotta say, this sucks.”  My thighs were trembling from the constant exertion, so I knew Jamila had to be suffering even more.  Balancing on the walking stick wasn’t much better, but it at least allowed us to stretch and move around a little.  We could have made a platform using earth qi, however neither of us wanted to expend the energy for just a few minutes of rest.  “Tell me again why we’re doing this?”

“Because leaving all of those sailors to die and their dead bodies to fill the ranks of our enemies is a terrible idea.”  Jamila was flexing her calf muscles, trying to keep them from cramping.  “And, this is great training.  I haven’t been pushed this hard outside of a battle in a long time.”

“Well, we might need to rethink some of our training regimen then.”  I smiled, thinking of the complaining Chu would have been doing this whole time.  “Can you imagine throwing in something like this once or twice a week?  Chu would probably plan a revolt!”

“No, I don’t think so.”  Jamila chuckled quietly.  “He would put something in our food, so we would sleep through the whole day we were supposed to do it.”  We both laughed, and went back to balancing.  After drinking some water and splitting a hunk of cheese, the two of us started the uncomfortable climb once again.

I was starting to doubt if we would ever reach the end of the shaft when the faint smell of smoke reached our noses.  Both of us picked up the pace, pushing toward the top with a purpose.  The lack of light coming from the opening Jamila disappeared through told me what we would find.  There was no way the sailors would still be there in the dark.  I emerged from the well and rolled into a crouch, extending my senses in case of an attack.  Jamila was nowhere to be found, but I hadn’t heard a scuffle so I imagined she had immediately moved to the top of a nearby building.  Deciding it was a good decision, I did the same.

Remembering the layout of the area, I made it to a rooftop in less than a minute.  The smell of smoke was heavy in the pure darkness, and I could tell it wasn’t from a recent fire.  Whatever had happened, it was at least several hours ago.  Dead silence made my own breathing seem loud in the darkness.  After waiting for a few minutes, I finally pulled out several glow stones and tossed them around the area.  Jamila gave me a wave from two buildings over, and tossed out a few light sources to help illuminate the area.  Once we could finally see, it was obvious what had happened.

“You check the buildings.”  I motioned for the new opening in the side of the cavern, where an invading force had punched through.  “I’ll go see about that.”  Jamila gave me a thumbs up and hopped down.  I used a tiny burst of qi to launch myself over the burnt remains of the makeshift gate the sailors had set up, and pulled out an adamantine spear from my storage belt.

There were a few streaks of blood leading back into the new tunnel, telling me that at least a few sailors had been injured before getting dragged away.  Whatever had made the new tunnel hadn’t used qi, and I made an educated guess that the undead had simply chipped away at the rock in an adjacent tunnel until they made a new way into the cavern.  I turned back to see what Jamila had found, but dropped an alarm formation that would alert us if something came through the area.

“So, was there anything on your end?”  I poked my head inside the building I felt Jamila exploring, and it was obvious a hard battle had been fought here.  This was where they had set up their makeshift hospital, and the stack of bodies and bones piled up at the opposite entrance matched up with the new incursion into the cavern.  The lack of tactical planning by the undead was mildly surprising, given that the door I was walking in didn’t have a single body.  It was like they got close enough to sense the living, chipped their way through the stone, and came straight at the largest cluster of life qi they could find.  To me, it meant this group wasn’t being controlled in any way.  They had just been left free to wander and attack whatever they could find.

“There aren’t any bodies of the sailors in this mess.”  Jamila was poking at the pile in front of the door.  “I think they killed everything attacking them at this point.”  She pulled out a charred skull, and tossed it to me.  “They lit the gate on fire when they couldn’t hold it, and pulled back to this point.  The skeletons and zombies marched straight through the flames, and I think the sailors won.”

“I found drag marks at the new tunnel, so some of them are probably still alive.”  I rethought the circumstances of the battle.  If they had fought off the group trying to kill them, that meant the smears of blood were from the sailors moving out of the area.  “We should probably follow them, to see where they went.”

“You and I both know the odds are high that more than one of them were infected.”  Jamila’s grip on her katana made her knuckles turn white.  “If they don’t listen this time, we might have to kill them, before they make it back to the surface.”

“I know.”  I put my spear back in storage.  “Either way, we need to catch up with them.”  I activated the walking stick function of my spirit wood ring, and tied a large glow stone to the end of it so we could follow the blood trails.  “Hopefully, we can save at least a few of them.”