Tycoon May: Chapter 29 (Patreon)

Chapter 29

Sneaking up to the cave mouth, Grant had to hold back his gag reflex.  The smell coming from the hole in the ground was intense and musky, almost a physical force that pushed against him as he walked forward.  For some reason, it reminded him of reptiles.  But for the stink to be this bad, it would have to be some big reptiles.

Grant let out a quiet sigh.  “Here we go again.”  He moved slowly through the entrance, doing his best to give his eyes—and nose—a chance to adjust.  The sounds of rocks tinkling down from above caused him to pause.  The old rockslide had created a kind of entrance hall to the actual cave system, and it looked precarious enough that a cave-in could happen at any moment.  If only one of the large stones shifted, it might bring the whole thing down, sealing the cave forever.

<Stop thinking dramatic thoughts, and get in there.  You act like you’ve never been sealed in a cave with a bunch of monsters before.>

“Hah.  Really funny, Sarge.”  Despite the poor joke, it did manage to make Grant feel a little better.  He moved into the cave proper, looking for more tracks in the dim light as he went.  The ground was packed hard enough that only a few scrapes from claws sharp enough to score limestone were easily seen.  “Maybe I should have gone back for help.”

<It’s too late now to second-guess your decision.  Quit stalling and get in there.>  Double-checking the straps on his armor, Grant made the plunge before he could talk himself out of it.  After no more than a few steps, it became so pitch black that he couldn’t see his hand in front of his face.  <Lightly shuffle your feet as you walk.  I’ll try to use the echoes to give you a sense of what’s around you.>

Grant did as he was told, and in a few steps a faint orange outline of the cave filled his vision.  Almost immediately he was confronted with a fork in the tunnel.  To the left, he would be able to walk upright.  To the right, the ceiling dropped low enough he would have to get down on his hands and knees.  Not liking that idea, he started walking down the taller tunnel.

The smell immediately started getting worse, so Grant stopped for a moment to tear off a piece of cloth from a spare shirt in his pouch to use as a mask.  Even though his Bodily Awareness skill had been changed to Regeneration, Grant’s sense of smell was still sensitive enough that it felt like more of a hindrance than a help.

After getting set to go, Grant kept shuffling deeper into the cave.  The occasional sound of water dripping in the distance was the only thing to break up the monotony of his shuffling steps and pounding of his heart in his ears.  “If I could have one wish, it would be to never have to go into a dark, stinking cave ever again.”

<I thought it would be something along the lines of never having to eat food that tastes bad, like what you went through in District February.>  Grant’s next shuffle forward ended with a squelch as he stepped in a pile of fresh dung.  <Never mind, I think I get it.>

“Ugh, this is the worst.”  Grant leaned against the wall to shake his boot clean, accidentally scraping his armor along the wall.  Instead of the sound of metal on stone, he heard the squeal of metal on metal.  “What in the celestial feces?”

<Take off your glove and run your bare hand along the wall.>  Grant did as Sarge asked, and was shocked at what he felt.

“Sarge, is this what I think it is?”  He ran his hand up and down, feeling a huge vein of Metallica crystals surrounded by rotting limestone.  “This… this is huge!  There has to be three times as much as there was in the last cave.  I’m rich!”

<Keep your voice down.  You aren’t anything until you secure this cave.>  Grant sucked in the shout of joy that wanted to escape.  <But yes, this is quite a find.  Depending on how big and deep it is, this might be all you need to make it all the way to Tycoon May.  It’s almost as if the threads of fate are looking out for you.>

“If you say so.”  Grant thought about what he had been through over the past five months.  “I’d say it’s more like they’re treating me like a training dummy.”

<Either way, this cave doesn’t seem so bad anymore, huh?>

Grant kicked his foot again, still trying to get the scat off of him.  “Sure, not quite as bad, but still pretty bad.”

<Oh, quit your moaning and get your glove back on.  You still have people to save, remember?>

The tunnel started to twist back on itself, but angled deeper underground.  Now that he knew they were there, Grant made sure not to repeat the same mistake of stepping in a pile of manure.  His meager face covering wasn’t doing much to help him either.  “Sarge, I’ve been walking for a long time.  Shouldn’t I have run into Adria by now?”

Before the sword spirit could answer, Grant heard the scuffle of leather on stone from a little further up ahead.  Immediately dropping into a crouch, he froze, listening hard.

Faint whispers reached his ears, and he slowly crept closer to try and understand them.  A flicker of orange light came from around the corner, almost blending in perfectly with the outline Sarge was projecting onto his vision.

The whispers turned into the voice of someone unhappily grumbling, and Grant pushed himself up against a small outcropping on the tunnel wall in an attempt to hide from a figure that rounded the corner while holding a tiny tin candle lantern that barely cast enough light for them to see where to put their feet.  To Grant, who had spent a good bit of time in complete darkness, it was bright enough to cause his eyes to water.  Grant was frozen in indecision, unsure of how to treat the person.  Could it be the lost scout?  By the voice, Grant at least knew it wasn’t Adria stomping closer to him, but that still didn’t mean this was an enemy.

“Go check our trail, Steve.  Maybe someone followed us, Steve.  You’re the youngest, Steve, so of course it should be you risking your neck, Steve.”  The figure, apparently named Steve, stopped to wave his hands around in frustration.  “Feed the Gracken, Steve.  Cook the supper, Steve.  Check the ropes on the captive, Steve.  Torture the prisoner, Steve.  Rub my back, Steve.  Check my bunions, Steve.  Let me cut your hair, Steve.  See if Brian is back yet, Steve.  Why am I the person who has to do everything?  It isn’t like I don’t have things to do, too.  How am I supposed to write a letter to the baker’s daughter if I can’t even get ten minutes to myself!  They want me to be single and miserable for the rest of my life, just like the rest of them.”

<Do you see how annoying it is when someone complains all the time, Grant?  Makes you want to kill him, right?>

Instead of answering, Grant sprang from the darkness and used the hilt of his sword to knock the man in the temple hard enough to send him straight into a pile of manure face-first and unconscious.  He even managed to catch the tiny lantern before it could clatter to the ground.  If Steve was keeping prisoners, he definitely wasn’t a member of Grant’s wagon train.

He bent down to make sure the man didn’t drown in the pile of poo and gave him a quick pat-down.  Grant quickly realized Steve had to be one of the ambushers that had gotten away, making him a Vassal of House Saturday.

<You’re right.  He counted toward your cultivation, so he is definitely a Vassal.  And he was definitely right about one thing.  Whoever cut Steve’s hair was bad at it.>  Grant looked back down, definitely agreeing with Sarge.  <Anyway, now you know why Adria and the scout went missing.  This just turned into a rescue mission.>

“Yeah, but there’s no telling how many more of these guys there are down here, and at least one more is supposed to be coming back any time.”  Grant looked back up the tunnel to see if there were any signs of someone else coming, but he didn’t see anything.  “There’s no place to hide this guy when they come, so I’m on a time limit.  They don’t seem very tough, though.  I think I can take them, especially if I use the tunnel so they only come at me one or two at a time.”

<I agree, but you’re forgetting about what they can do to the prisoners.  If you don’t free them first, they could use them to try and make you surrender.>  Grant nodded in agreement, thinking over the problem.  If he were to pretend to be one of them, it was dark enough he might get close enough to free the prisoners before the Vassals noticed.  <That’s as good a plan as any right now.  Strip this guy and get moving.>

Grant took off the outer layer of clothing and weapons the man had, and eyed the manure-covered hood on the black cloak the man was wearing.  “I don’t know, maybe there’s another way…”  After a few seconds nothing better came to mind, so he held his breath and got the gear in place, saving the smelly hood for last.  “This stinks.”

<Ha!  Remember, no complaining.  You don’t want to sound like Steve, do you?>

Grunting in disgust, Grant brushed his hands off and went to stand up just as a hand came out of the darkness and grabbed him by the throat.  A flash of steel was all the warning he had before a dagger came stabbing for his eye.  He managed to catch the wrist of the hand holding the blade a hair's-breadth before it could connect.

The two struggled, and Grant tried to move away, tripping over the prone form of Steve laid out behind him.  He kept hold of the dagger-wielding attacker, throwing them over him as he rolled through the same pile of manure that Steve had almost drowned in.  Grant pulled in a ragged breath through his bruised throat as he came to his feet and used Iaijutsu to unsheath his Uchigatana with a flourish, intended to keep his opponent at bay.  His throat told him his attacker was strong, maybe stronger than him.  They had managed to spring to their feet after he had thrown them, so they were more than strong.  They were skilled.  He gripped the hilt of his sword, ready for a fight to the death.

“Grant?  What are you doing here?  And why are you covered in Gracken poop?”  Adria stepped into the flickering light of the dim lantern, not a speck of manure on her, despite getting thrown.

All he could do was shake his head as he sheathed his sword.  “Life isn’t fair.”