Chapter 15 — Stones By the Dozen

It was an acquaintance of Sauda’s that had hinted her towards the lair she, Jakyra, and the accompanying dwarves were headed for. The person hadn’t seen much, but there were demonic bat cryptids inside called the olitiau. Four and a half feet in height, black skinned with large, dark brownish-red wings and serrated fangs, and smart enough to use weapons and, worse, magic.

Whatever magic lied in that lair, they most likely had claimed it. On the bright side, the midday sun was bathing the world in its light — the olitiaus wouldn’t be awake at such a time. Plus, cryptids had a tendency to get rid of a lair’s more troublesome traps when they moved in.

As long as we keep the dwarves safe, she reminded herself as she spotted a cavity etched into a shrub-covered hill in the distance, no problem. Her gaze briefly went to Bills, a slimmer, more mature-looking (and grumpy) version of Gunnar whose irritation was redirected to his conversation with Jakyra.

“So you’re telling me,” he was saying, Gunnar behind him in silent awe, “your connection with the Dragon Crown itself is that of a dissenting nuisance?”

“You’re getting it mixed up,” Jakyra said. “I’m sort of an activist who attracted the indignation of the Crown because I constantly was in their faces. It doesn’t help that the former king kept sending guards to capture me when I never fell afoul of the law, nor that I was good at resisting.”

“And you did all this when you were younger and got away with it, without getting jailed once? Impossible, that sort of thing only happens in stupid stories!”

Sauda resisted the urge to sigh as the others stopped moving and glanced at each other.

“You’re judging the story of my life by the cover I’ve shown you,” Jakyra said with a short laugh. “The fact of the matter is that I have been jailed before, but charges held against me failed and I got bailed out.”

Bills dismissed it all anyway as they continued walking. No surprise there, Sauda too had trouble with Jakyra’s tales at first. What turned her around? When the pink coairse mentioned a good number of laws on how Wynn’s guards were to conduct arrests and where a citizen could resist. It turned out that rights allowing disobedience to the government in certain cases stemmed from ancient dragon law, which kings chose not to annul for fear of public pressure, and Jakyra had made extensive use of them.

Jakyra, Sauda thought, someone good at whatever she puts her mind to. Which wasn't a lot of things.

The gloomy hole in the hill seemed to inch towards Sauda as she came close. A peek inside revealed a grotto with a descending staircase to the side, leading to the actual lair. Gunnar and Bills walked over to see for themselves, Jakyra muttering about the hole being just large enough for her to enter.

“So olitiaus, right?” Bills said. “Heard of those things, they once haunted our mines. Terrible creatures with sharp fangs and claws who like to suck the blood dry out of their victims, or so the tales go.”

“Herbivores,” Sauda said.

Bills raised an eye at that, the strange noise coming from his throat hinting he hadn’t known this. Gunnar’s blanched reaction to his brother’s words disappeared as he gave him a nudge in the shoulder, Jakyra watching in amusement. It was a funny tidbit about olitiaus — despite their demonic appearance and fierceness in battle, their diet actually consisted of fruits and leafy plants.

Sauda entered the cavern, finding the large stairway at the side falling into a chamber. A shame she couldn’t make out what was with all those generic shapes scattered on the floor, elvish eyesight just wasn’t that sharp. She would need to take a closer look.

“So this is it?” Jakyra asked, squeezing in. “Huh, I never thought lairs might have a flair for accommodating even dragons, even these stairs could fit pairs of my kind—”

Sauda coughed. Endearing as Jakyra’s way of speaking could be, she had a tad of a bad habit of forcing them out. It also made it next to impossible to ignore unintentional playing on words.

If only Jakyra wouldn’t take such lengths to show off her quirk. “I’ll take a cough over your death stare,” she cheekily said as she urged the dwarves over. “You remember how we’re dealing with this?”

Well before coming here, Sauda explained to the brothers their goal in entering this lair: to retrieve its magic artifact. Olitiaus weren’t aggressive outside their turf, but raised magic was fickle and could pose a danger if left unchecked. Hence why Fantasmyth’s nations kept track of lairs and had their artifacts retrieved for their mutual wellbeing.

If the olitiaus stayed asleep, Sauda planned on sneaking in alone and taking the artifact if possible, then allow Gunnar to fight a few before leaving. If awake, they would only take on a couple before leaving. Not worth the trouble, she considered, believing it better to sneak in another day. This was just an exercise for Gunnar’s sake, the artifact wasn’t as important as his safety.

Gunnar nodded in recollection. Bills gave a shrug, hand on the pommel hanging from his scabbard.

“I don’t get you, kid,” he muttered to his brother. “So bent on joining some party of adventurers or mercenaries, whatever it’s called, that you’re willingly entering a lair and all. Just don’t step out of line, okay? You listening to me?”

Gunnar gave a curt nod. Whether he would stick to the plan once down was another matter — Sauda would need an eye on him at all times. Today’s operation would be a good way to show Bills his sibling was in good hands.

Though it probably wouldn’t matter. The way Bills was acting, she questioned if he was really willing to negotiate. Leave it for now, she thought.

A chuckle came from Bills. “Alright then, let’s get this over with.” The party went down the cobbled staircase, Sauda in the lead.

She paused as she came down the last few steps, putting up her hand and scanning the open room in front of her. Pillar-like shapes periodically bulged out of bricked stone walls where sconces hung, torches burned out from who knew how long ago. A half-open wooden door loomed at the other side, a cobblestone path leading through it. Four monstrous bats hung from ceiling rafters in the far end corners, dangling and asleep.

As for the floor, Sauda had a double-take as she made out the shapes littering it. Rocks.

Lots and lots of rocks.

There were oval rocks, round rocks, jagged rocks, pebble-sized rocks, fist-sized rocks, rocks and rocks and rocks. A rock haven, with only rotting pieces of fruit, fruit pits, and the occasional pot to break up the madness of the scene. Rocks here, rocks there, rocks and rocks everywhere.

The group paused, so astonished their breaths stilled for a moment. Sauda had seen lairs, gone through a few on her ownsome too, but this? This was unexpected. If not for the chirp of an olitiau turning in its sleep, she would’ve stood there bewildered for a solid minute. Jakyra, meanwhile, would probably crack a joke about death by stoning.

Why did they hoard all these rocks anyway? Something about this seems unusual, Sauda figured, thinking about it for a good moment. Either this group of olitiaus liked throwing things at intruders to keep them away, or some strange magic was afoot. She best be wary.

She went forward, stepping around the rocks and bringing out her dagger. Jakyra came into view from the corner of her eye, grimacing as she tried her hardest not to dig her large feet into the stones, while Gunnar’s focus fell upon Sauda’s weapon. His adept magic sense, she thought. A fledgling herself at the skill, even Ismat and his overload of fire mana wasn’t easy to discern — one benefit of having the dwarf in the Omniguards.

Working with magic, on the other hand, came naturally to her. A commanding nudge into the shadow magic within her weapon turned the elf murky and phantom-like, her skill of blending into the darkness taken to a literal level. Shadowed.

The ability sparked amazement from the dwarf brothers. “That’s similar to the innate magic goblins had pre-Purge of Anima,” Bills said, focusing on the faint outlines of Sauda’s apparition. “You sure you’re not an assassin?”

A tug pulled at Sauda’s mouth, covered by both her shadowed veil and her balaclava. It was hard to dispel the impression of a classical assassin when one resembled them to the extent she did. Pity.

She made a simple, noiseless step, but in that one step she had moved to the grand door and slipped through the open gap.

An unlit chandelier swung in place as Sauda entered a vast hallway, the number of olitiaus resting from the ceiling above an indication that this room held no traps. Three others were awake and on the ground, moving around piles of rocks on their bowlegged, clawed feet. Their wings, hooded over them, did a great job of making them seem larger than they really were. Good for indimitation, Sauda noted.

And judging from the layout of this lair, people must’ve used it equally as living quarters. The hallway stretched out for a good while, multiple rooms with open doors adjoining the sides. A brief movement instantly brought Sauda’s concealed form to one such room, the interior empty save for yet more stashes of rocks. Once upon a time, this could have been someone’s home.

Sauda took a step back, flashing to the other side of the hallway seconds before an olitiau entered the room she was just inspecting. Close, she thought, not wanting a ruckus on her hands.

At the other end of the hall was a larger door, this one barely open enough to slip through. Considering the layout so far, maybe this would take her to where the actual artifact was supposed to be sealed. A few zigzagged steps around heaped rocks brought her over, head craning to peek inside.

The large room beyond and the swarm of rocks blanketing its floor barely got a glance, a stony gate on the other side grabbing her attention. Its frame jutted out and its pair of doors oddly shut, a niche of some sort etched into the wall above it. There slept a strange olitiau on a bed of straw, head rested on its forearm. Sauda clamped her balaclava and the shadowy lips behind it shut as its free claw shifted.

Within that claw, a crude doll made of purple wool teased her with its grimy grin. The artifact, she realized. Why else would an olitiau keep a creepy doll like that?

Sauda crept in, finding notably large olitiaus sleeping in this room’s rafter-supported ceiling and, yikes, more rocks. A few other doorways adjoined the place, but none seemed as important as that one particular gate. Intuition told her that puppet was the only artifact here, already claimed by the demon-bat in the niche. The leader, and the bulky olitiaus its guards.

One flaw to being shadowed was that it was difficult for her to grab objects she wasn’t already holding. Sauda dispelled the form as she brought herself up to the niche, examining the puppet and its wretched, sadistic face. An artifact if she ever saw one. She reached for it.

Her hand paused as a screechy, trilling noise akin to that of a bird’s echoed into the room, holding its pitch for a good few seconds before leveling off. Sauda immediately went shadowed as the olitiau in front of her opened its beady eyes, its guards doing the same. Did she set off some alarm?

No, that didn’t add up. An alarm trap made sense in a lair that also had been used as a living quarters, but surely olitiaus wouldn’t know how to find and repurpose such a trap to alert them of intruders.

Which meant some fool made the noise.

She leapt to the floor as the olitiau with the doll flew out of its niche, soundlessly opening and closing its mouth. Who? Sauda grumbled to herself. She left for no more than a minute and someone just had to mess around! Luckily her near-unseeable form would keep these demon-bats from detecting her—

Wait, they have echolocation.

Sauda sighed as the burly olitiaus in the room made shrilling noises at her location. The one with the doll, supposedly the leader, snarled as it brought its magic toy overhead.

All at once the stones lying around began to tremble. With a jerk they rose into the air, swirling around before clumping together over the lead olitiau’s head. Sauda batted an eye at the result: a crude, makeshift boulder hovering in place, as if it was possessed.

So now she knew both the purpose of all these rocks and what that magic doll did. Two birds with one stone, Sauda deadpanned, quickly stepping to a corner of the room as the sphere of rocks showered her previous location. Really though, who would be so brash as to make that bird sound?

The lead olitiau opened and closed its mouth again before pointing out her location to the others. Fangs bared, the other bats rushed at Sauda’s spot, but the shadowed elf fled to another corner of the room. Undeterred, the leader levitated more rocks before letting them whiz throughout the room, in hopes that one stray stone would fly smack into her.

Having to make out shapes in the darkness did make the flying projectiles more troublesome, but Sauda didn’t have trouble dodging in her current state. Being shadowed was perfect for stealth, speed, and evasion. Fighting back? Not so much.

It was when one of the other olitiau produced an ear-splitting cry, one that brought in four of its regular-sized friends barging through the door, that a chill went down her spine. She needed to make this theft fast.

Unfortunately the doll-wielding leader wasn’t allowing that, taking to the air and surrounding itself in orbiting rocks. A few olitiau moved by its side, further shielding it while the remainders tried to close in on Sauda. Should she go for the puppet? If she could just time it right, she could leap towards it, briefly return to her normal self to grab it, then go back to shadowed—

And then Gunnar’s image appeared before Sauda, and she discarded the thought. The others were likely dealing with their own swarm and needed her, and she did agree to protect him. Too risky to do the theft anyway, she concluded, slipping back into the long hallway that was now devoid of olitiaus. She’d try again another time.

The entrance was as Sauda expected: a storm of olitiaus throwing themselves at Jakyra and the dwarves. Gunnar seemed fine, actually holding his own with Bills as battleaxe and sword collided with bat-demon flesh. A slash from her dragon friend threw two devastated bodies her way, the elf casually moving out of the way and discarding her shadowed form.

“Oh, you’re back!” Jakyra said, flinging one of wings and all the rocks amassed on it towards the horde of olitiaus before attacking any nearby ones who flinched. “And before you peck our throats out, no, none of us made a tweet.”

“Apparently it came from outside,” Gunnar stated as he hacked off a head, voice rough as he grimaced with horror at the blood spilled. Sauda swiftly looked away.

Bills wasn’t so afflicted by the gore, his sword causing the scream of two other olitiaus. “Speaking of outside, shouldn’t we leave? No pun intended, but it’s getting awful bloody in here!”

Why they hadn’t done so, Sauda didn’t understand, but no matter. She stabbed at one olitiau making a move towards her, promptly gesturing the others to leave. The demonic bats were deadly, but not so fatalistic as to follow intruders once they escaped their territory. Less need for needless death too, she thought in an imitation of Jakyra’s speech.

Then the leader olitiau flew in, rocks moving at his command to blockade the staircase to the others’ shock, and Sauda sighed as she adjusted her grip on her dagger.

This complicated things.