Chapter 28:

26 Days After Spring’s Beginning

288 Days After The Ra’tok Attack Amia Village

Rua Desert, Rhia Territory

Underground, Petrified City

My grip around Kamar’s neck tightens, and I shift around, looking at the large slashes the score the petrified, stone walls. A dank, musky smell fills the air, and there is the sound of water dripping from somewhere in the back of the room.

The air is fileld with a loud pinging as what I can guess is the spores hit the house, bouncing off the rocks. It sounds like hundreds of pebbles being thrown at a rock.

“That’s sure to get its attention,” Kamar rumbles. He quickly moves towards the back of the house.

I scan the dark room, letting out a sigh after I find nothing of immediate threat.

“It’s not home.” I note, looking around at the caved in building we have found ourselves in. The hallway to go further is blocked by a pile of rubble, but this room is reasonably sizable. A counter rings three of its edges, plastered in limestone and petrified.

This must have been some kind of shop.

Right behind the counter is a large hole, scratches marring the surface around it. I can’t see a bottom.

Kamar leans over it, tentatively holding out his hand that carries the blue fungus jar and lighting up the top of the hole, but even with that, I can’t see the bottom.

I don’t like this. Where is the umber hulk?

“We’ll have to go down if we want to escape.” Kamar states grimly, looking over his shoulder at me.

I try to stay calm, taking a deep breath. I’ve been through worse.

Nodding towards Kamar, I start pushing my cycling technique to go faster, pulling in more and more vital aura. I channel it towards my nearly healed bones, hoping to get up to functional soon.

Kamar turns back to pit, the blue light from the jar casting twisted shadows across the walls and his face. I can tell he is thinking.

The asper mutters under his breath, his hands shimmering with Iron aspect katra, “Ironworks: Steel Fists.”

I watch as the Iron katra condenses quickly around his hands, forming interlocking links and plate, creating thick gauntlets made of Iron katra. kIt looks transparent, and painted onto the world, not exactly solid, yet still solid.

That’s what normal constructs look like. I can’t help but compare them to what I have created. Mine looks almost indistinguishable from reality. So is Amia and everything on it really a construct then?

Kamar tenses, and says, “Down we go.”

He hops, jumping down into the hole.

Wind lashes at my face as we drop, the blue light moving along the wet walls with us. The air rushes past, my clothes ripping and my ears filled with the woosh of air passing. Then we land, a massive vibration running through Kamar’s body and into my.

I am left breathless for a second, and gulp in the musky air. I suppress a cough as the humidity reaches my lungs.

Kamar stand up from his crouch, standing on all fours. He brings up his large right hand, holding the jar aloft and lighting up the passage. On both sides of us it stretches and curves away into darkness.

“Left or right?” Kamar says quietly.

I contemplate it for a second, then just shrug, shaking my head. It makes no difference. We don’t know which way leads to out of here.

The asper shrugs as well, and starts following the left path. His Iron katra constructs clink on the stone as he leans on his knuckles to walk forward. The walls of this tunnel seem slick with dampness and I can smell the powerful scent of mold. It doesn’t seem like the umber hulk does maintenance.

I close my eyes, shifting my mind’s eye inwards and into my soul space.

I materialize in the phantom-like projection, and quickly fly towards the moon. Land on its surface gently, I walk towards the tree that is the only feature on this rocky wasteland.

It has spread it’s twisted and sharp branches farther since I was last here, not by much through. The pod has grown bigger as well.

I close my astral eyes, using my sense of the Gray katra to see into the pod. Inside is only a nutrient rich, viscous liquid. It’s nearly ready to start growing my Defender.

I know I’ll need a better name than “the defender”, but for now, I would call it that. I want to speed up the process, but I need as much katra as I can get right now.

I rub the now bark covered roots that have twisted themselves together tightly to form what will be what makes the defender.

I remember that I was able to completely build my world on the katra I had. And I’m pretty sure that was because I only guided the evolution of species, and did not create anything other than that first single celled organism. It’s a process that I am still trying to understand. Now that I look back at it, my memories of it are rather hazy and I get the distinct feeling that I wasn’t all together in control.

A chill runs up my spine, and that weird crackling starts back up. Could it have been this ‘mother’ who helped me do it?

I’d been mostly running on instinct this whole time sense then, creating what I thought was a good idea at the time. But could she somehow be influencing me in subtle ways?

It’s a question that I am not sure I want answered, but I can’t help be reminded of the recent lightning incident. Could she have made me do that, or was that me?

I will admit I had been intoxicated from the power I have over this place, but getting struck by lightning once is enough for me to know I am still very much mortal. I’m still not even fully healed.

I pat the pod once and let my mind drift back into my material body. These are all questions that I can’t get answers to, and right now I need to focus on the current predicament.

It was just that there was so much to do, and so little time to do it. It’s a mad dash now.

Opening my eyes, I can tell that with my brief trip into the Soul Space, that the dark vision adaptation has dissipated. So, I need to be conscious of it to keep it active?

It might be a useful thing to remember.

Once again, I focus on being able to see in the dark. Adapt.

My eyes water a little and I blink at the sharp pain in my eyeballs as their composition shifts around to allow me to see in the dark. This pain is nothing.

I look ahead of us, squinting because of the bright light from the jar Kamar is holding out infront of him.

I say quietly, “You know Kamar, if we get through this, I think we might as well make it official.”

He rumbles quietly, “What official?”

I smile, “That we’re now a party of adventurers!”

He snorts, whether out of amusement, I am unsure. He turns back to walking down the dank tunnel.

My forced grin wanes a little. I know I’m just trying to distract myself from the situation, but it’s a way to cope with the threat of imminent death. Maybe not the best, but it is a way.

A rumble vibrates through the ground. That would probably be Inik.

I shudder at the thought of him fighting the tarrasque. Could he really be powerful enough to not only hunt it, but kill it?

I have a reasonable suspicion that if we wanted it dead right away, it would never have gotten out this far. I think he might in fact be toying with it, and he seemed to have been more focused on enjoying his hunt than bothering with me. Which I don’t mind.

While I could feel sympathy for the thri-kreen that lived with the tarrasque, I can’t help but remember their queen’s thinly veiled threat. She didn’t take my refusal so well, but I suppose it’s better than her out right killing me.

I can’t help but compare her offer to that of the Ventos’s House Head, and even that of Vicar’s. I furrow my brow a little at that, So many people who want me for something.

It’s kind of amazing that I have lasted this long without taking one of their offers. I know if I did, I have no doubt that I could become incredibly powerful in a relatively short time.

Though, as Inik said, I walk my own Path. While I know I could become stronger, I would also become indebted to them, even Vicar, despite the fact I still feel pain over his death, I know he too wanted something from me. I don’t want to be controlled.

I’m distracting myself with thoughts again. I steel my mind, turning my attention back to the here and now.

I glance over my shoulder to behind us as we continue to walk further into the tunnel. Where is the umber hulk?

While I know Kamar had hurt it, I doubt it was enough to put it out of commission for a while. From the size of the outline I had seen, it was rather large, and if the width and height of this tunnel is any more of a clue, it’s rather large. I guess that’s why it’s called a hulk.

The tunnel twists left, and rounding the corner, it opens up into a small, round room.

That musty smell of mold has gotten quite a bit stronger, the room reeking of it. Several hallways branch off from the room, twisting away out of my sight.

Kamar holds up the blue jar, providing a light glow to the room.

My eye catches on something glising, something I hadn’t noticed before.

In the back, left side of the room is a sac of white, fist sized black orbs bulging from it. The pungent smell of mold and earth wafts from the sac, which has attached itself to the walls and floor with thin strands of a milky white substance.

Kamar says very quietly, “Up…”

This must be where the hulk is nesting. And those are its eggs.

I follow his gaze up. The ceiling of this room is several feet above our heads, and a web like structure hangs from strands. It is the same milky white color as the stuff covering the egg sac, and I can see a large chitin covered form laying in it.

The umber hulk!

It isn’t moving, and I can only assume it is asleep.

The large hairs covering its form rise up a little, as if sensing us.

My breath gets stuck in my throat, and I don’t dare breathe. Kamar tenses up, and I can feel him take a step back into the tunnel.

A pinging and the sound of things pinging off stone echo from the way we came, like a swarm banging on the stone walls. The spores!

This just keeps getting better and better.

Kamar cocks his head back and I mouth, “Spores.”

He puts on a defeated look and turns back to the round room.

I motion for him to head to the nearest branching off path, my mind frantically trying to figure out what to do.

The asper starts to quickly creep out, moving along the right edge of the room and towards one of the many other tunnel entrances. The sound of shifting cloth slowly being covered by the pinging.

I hold my breath as Kamar very quietly shifts around, taking several steps.

I watch as the umber hulk in it’s hammock of strings stirs, the hairs on its body standing right up. I can only see its back, unable to see its head, arms or legs.

One of its arms moves, the massive curved claws that tip its finger twitching as it starts to turn around.

The pinging off stone gets unbearably louder and a blue glow fills the room from the tunnel we came from.

Kamar throws caution to the wind, bounding into the nearest tunnel. He moves at a full sprint, the Iron katra constructs on his hands pulverizing the stone as we speed down in the tunnel.

Behind, I can hear the enraged screeching of an umber hulk, high pitched and rage filled. There is a buzzing in the air, and I can smell ozone.

This is not how I ever pictured a dungeon dive! This is the 4 hells!