The Early Chronicles of the Oddlot I: 3. Race for the Cure

Dalvin looked over the vial. He was no wizard, but did have a druid’s sense of the different herbs and other flora that could be corrupted to do the secret work of murder, such as the assassin had used.

“It’s not good news,” he said. “There’s a cure, but it’s so rare, I wouldn’t have a clue as to where.”

“How is Leffe?” I asked.

“He’s stable, for now. The local healer is with him. Between us, we’ve kept the poison neutralized, but it won’t last. Neither of us is powerful enough to counteract it permanently.”

“And then what?” Mordo asked.

“Then, my large friend, Leffe will be in agony. He may die, but will almost assuredly be maimed. If I hadn’t awoken and interrupted the blighter, he may have administered a dose potent enough to have killed our friend outright.”

We were sitting in the common room of the tavern. The gnome looked exhausted, his full energies having been thrown into saving the dwarf’s life. This was on top of an evening of deadly combat. In fact, none of us, even the indomitable Mordo, looked fresh from the fight.

“Could this have something to do with the kobolds?” I asked. I had assumed it had at first, having followed so closely on the scaly monsters’ attack. Now, I didn’t see the connection. Leffe had remained in the shadows, so it seemed unlikely that they would have singled him out. Also, the assassin had been a human cultist of Zehir, a group not likely to befoul themselves with kobolds.

“I don’t think so,” Dalvin said. “When I first met Leffe, I had the sense he was running. He’s never said from whom or why, but he did admit he’d maybe stolen from the wrong being before.”

“Something precious, then, to hire assassin,” Mordo said.

The tavern door opened to admit gray-bearded Gaerling and a human woman of middle years who looked the most tired of anyone in the room. I took her to be the healer, fatigued by the mending after the battle, and now this.

Gaerling made his concerns known instantly, a lack of sleep making him tactless. He repeated my earlier question. Patiently, Dalvin restated that he believed the attack was a personal matter. Gaerling’s posture softened, and he bid us good night once more.

“I’m not sure I like that man,” I said to Dalvin. “He seems a bit careless with us.”

“He has a town to look after. You can’t blame him.”

I could, but I kept that to myself.

“Carla,” Dalvin said to the woman, “I’ve determined the cure. Coarsle mushrooms.”

The woman groaned. “Only one place I know about that has it, but the gettin’ the cure is gonna be worse than the poison for you lot.”

“How so?” I asked.

She explained, though I wished she hadn’t. The mushrooms grew deep in a cavern she hadn’t been to since her girlhood, when she was just learning a healer’s ways. She hadn’t been back, she said, because all manner of nasty snakes had taken residence.

“And not some little pests, mind ya,” she said. “Big buggers, some larger than you.” She pointed at Dalvin. “At least that big. Last time I got close, it wasn’t just the snakes that gave me the creeps. Something else was in there too, something just flitting about the corners of my vision.” She hugged herself and shivered.

I thought about Leffe. I had known him only a night. He’d seemed rather mercenary in his behaviors. Still, I felt a bond with the dwarf, one forged by the fighting together. I couldn’t abandon him to the poison.

“How much time do we have?”

“Best get ya some sleep,” the healer said. “I can keep that poison at bay a wee bit longer. Two days at most. Then, it’ll start to eat at ‘im. Wait too long and the damage will be permanent, maybe even deadly.”

I was grateful to return to sleep. Though Leffe needed us, we’d have done him no good in our haggard state.

We left at noon the next day, setting off into the forest to the south of the town. Gaerling had told us that this was away from the kobold lair to the north, which was good for us. Gaerling had looked apprehensive, but I said if the four of us had been a long shot before, three of us wouldn’t be better. We needed our dwarven friend alive and kicking, if we were going to slay his monsters for him.

“Nobody in town ever heard of Zehir,” Mordo said out of nowhere, as we cut through a dense patch of undergrowth in the woods. “Mordo not think Zehir and kobolds working together.”

“You were up earlier than us?” Dalvin asked. Mordo hadn’t been in the room when I’d awoken and I’d assumed that he’d gone to guard Leffe and Dalvin.

“Mordo recover fast from fight. Got up before sleepyheads, asked around.”

I wondered how that went. Mordo didn’t strike me as the smoothest of talkers.

“Good to know,” Dalvin said. “Leffe regained some of his senses this morning, briefly. He confirmed that it was a personal matter.”

“Hmmph,” Mordo grunted. It was profound, as grunts go and seemed to echo my earlier concerns about why we were helping the dwarf. “Dwarf good person?” he added.

Dalvin sighed. “He’s my friend. We’ve been through a scrape or two already, and I’ve grown fond of him. He’s also a thief, but I’ve never known him to steal from a goodly person.”

We meditated on it, even as we slashed further through the undergrowth.

“Zehir definitely evil,” Mordo said later.

“No one decent would hire an assassin,” Dalvin said. “Especially not the Zehir.”

Mordo stopped so suddenly to ponder this, Dalvin banged off the warrior’s backside.

“Mordo help,” he said with a firm nod of his head.

Davlin peeked at me, eyes wide with question. Just because someone evil tried to kill a dwarf, didn’t make the dwarf a good person. Evil killed evil a lot more than good, if you read into the histories. Yet, Leffe had agreed to help the town. For money, of course. But facing down an entire tribe of goblins for whatever meager reward the town offered wasn’t the sign of a completely mercenary person.

I returned Davlin’s gaze. “I’m here, aren’t I?”

Dalvin bobbed his head, agreeing with the fact, but his eyes held the question.

“Ye gods, gnome! Aye! I’ll help Leffe. There’s something about him I like, though only Tyr knows what.” Dalvin smiled then and we marched forward again.

The undergrowth thickened as we went. We’d left the southward trail at a rock pile marker, as told to us by the town healer, Carla. She had claimed that a side trail ran through this way, but it had been so long since she’d visited the cave, the forest had started to reclaim it. Still, Dalvin and I could see well enough in the shadow formed by leafy canopy high above to make out faint traces. Other stone pile markers let us know we were on the right path.

“How many markers is that?” Dalvin asked as we passed another.

“Only three,” I said, checking the notes I kept in a small hardcover book. “Four more to go.”

Dalvin sighed and Mordo groaned. We’d been told that the cave wasn’t that far from town, but that had been as the crow flies. Crows didn’t often have to bushwhack. We soldiered on.

The sun was low as we cleared the final marker. I pointed this out to my companions.

Mordo shrugged. “Mordo not care. We go in cave. No sun in there anyways.”

He had a point, though I wondered what might be in the woods at night. I’d have to lead the way home at night. Both Dalvin and I could see in the dark due to hour ancestry, but Dalvin had steadfastly maintained a position between Mordo and me. It was a smart position for him, as we’d be better in melee than he. Truth be told, it was a position I preferred to be in. As I said, I’m a fair hand with a rapier, but I tend to let larger fellows like Mordo take on the physical threats.

“Quiet now, friends,” Mordo said without a trace of irony in his loud, deep voice. “Cave is close now.”

“This would be a perfect spot for Leffe to scout ahead,” Dalvin said. “He is like a shadow in the night.” As a professional wordsmith, that prose sounded rather purple to me. Dwarves, even rogues, weren’t known for their traceless passing. Still, his light step in the tavern had bespoke a certain grace unlike most of his kin.

With a start, I realized I’d been scribbling these ideas into my journal. Mordo and Dalvin looked at me like I’d sprouted an extra head. And, while that head would no doubt be as handsome as the first, I got a sense they wanted something more out of me than group clerk.

“What?”

“Ander bard,” Mordo said.

“Aye?”

“You sing here?”

“Of course not.”

“Why you writing then?”

“I just…” I waved my journal and lead piece uselessly. “I just feel there should be a record.”

Mordo nodded like a father trying to hold his patience. “Is good, aye. Just not right time. We need scout now.”

“Oh. Right.”

Mordo, in his iron clothing, would be too bulky and loud to scout. In good conscience, we couldn’t send the diminutive gnome ahead, who would need time to cast a spell to protect himself, should he run into danger. That left the task to me. Luckily, I had some experience in moving quietly. The same theater owners who didn’t pay up to my old troupe also employed mean-spirited guards and traps. I’d gotten by both in my time. Most of the time.

I took a moment to stash my writing implements and to secure my belongings. I jumped up and down a few times to check for jingling or other noises coming from my person. Satisfied, I crept away from my companions and into the gloom ahead. The trees gave way shortly before a cliff. A rope bridge spanned the hundred foot gap to the other side. I examined it. In the great stories of adventure, such things were usually rickety, with rotten boards and threadbare ropes. This bridge had every right to be the same way, yet I found it surprisingly solid. The old hempen rope had held up well, and a different kind of fiber, one that was still slightly sticky to the touch, had reinforced it. The same material girded the boards, and the bridge felt strong. I slunk back to my companions and reported my findings.

“That doesn’t reassure me,” Dalvin said. “That bridge should be dilapidated, without a person to maintain it.”

“Do you have other options for crossing?” I asked.

“Mordo could pole vault across,” the big warrior said.

“Tyr’s stump, Mordo!” I exclaimed, slightly louder than I had intended. “It’s a good hundred feet to the other cliff.”

This mattered little to Mordo.

“No, you’re not going to pole vault across,” Dalvin said. “You’re going to lead the way for us. There’s nowhere to hide on a rope bridge, so we might as well put our biggest in front.”

If Dalvin sounded callous to volunteer Mordo to be up front, keep in mind that we’d all been adventuring before. We knew the prevailing wisdom on how to enter an unknown, possibly dangerous place. Lead with your biggest, toughest companion. Put the frailer ones, usually the spell casters, in the middle. Place your second line fighters (me), at the back to hold off as sneak attack. Casters seldom wore armor. They often had to contort themselves to cast a spell, or had to summon forth energy. Armor could interfere with both. That, and they needed a moment to cast a spell, a spell that might be far more devastating to an opponent than even Mordo’s mighty maul.

Although, looking at Dalvin, I had my doubts about the devastating part.

Mordo led us to the bridge. He stomped heavily on the first few planks, grip firm on the rope handrail. Satisfied, he started across. Dalvin ran his hand up and along the handrail.

“There’s something familiar about this,” he said, pulling his hand free with light effort. “I know I’ve seen this somewhere before.”

“Let’s keep our eyes about us, Dalvin,” I whispered. “I worry more about what’s ahead than what the bridge is made off, as long as it’s strong.”

As it turned out, I should have worried about both.

“What’s that?” Dalvin said suddenly. We jerked to a halt to listen.

“Mordo not hear…”

“Shh!”

We were maybe three quarters of the way across the bridge when I heard it, too. The leathery flap of wings. Mordo didn’t see them coming. He’d opted to try his weak human eyes in the long shadows cast by the hill on the other side of the ravine. Dalvin and I could see well in such light. We saw the attackers descend.

“Bats!” Dalvin yelled. He spun his staff to wield them off as I made naked the blade of my rapier. Mordo lifted his maul, but could not really see what to strike.

The bats, huge and dark, dove upon us. Dalvin shrieked. The bats were large enough to carry him off, should the get their claws in him. I slashed as he whirled his staff, driving off their attacks. Mordo suffered a wicked slash to the top of his head.

“Charge across, Mordo!” Dalvin yelled. It was to no effect. The feel of his own blood hot on his neck enraged the warrior. As the next bat swooped in. Mordo jumped high into the air and grabbed it with two hands. The bat screeched awfully as the warrior came down with it, crushing the life out of it with his calloused hands even as it beat its wings and scratched at him. A loud crack ended its resistance, and Mordo flung its lifeless body over the bridge.

The attack had cost us. More bats were swarming, and Dalvin and I suffered minor wounds as we wobbled on the bridge, even as we wheeled and ducked.

“Forward, Mordo! Forward!” I bellowed.

The warrior came to his senses. Snatching up his maul, he lowered his head and charged across the bridge. We followed, badly, as his heavy run set the bridge wobbling harder. Dalvin went down, but I caught him before he slid off the side of the bridge. Mordo, realizing that we hadn’t followed, started hooting and throwing rocks at the bats. The bats broke off their attack to spin in the air away from the projectiles, giving me time to tuck Dalvin under my left arm and stride to Mordo.

“Inside!” Mordo yelled, pointing to a narrow opening in rocks. This side of the ravine formed a stony hill. A landslide must have taken out the majority of the cave opening, for what was left open was barely man-sized. I set Dalvin down and squeezed through, the gnome hot on my heels. Plate metal screeched on the rock as Mordo pushed his big body through. He shot forward and fell down. As he did so, the jaws of a bat snapped through the crevice. I punctured its eye with the tip of my rapier and it screamed and recoiled. I looked around for a boulder to jam in the opening, knowing that though the bats looked to be too big, they could squeeze through surprisingly small spaces.

To my great surprise, the opening sealed. The rock momentarily gained a liquid state, then reformed to fill the gap. I looked back at Dalvin, and the gnome had just finished the gestures of an incantation.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “I can dispel it when we need to leave.”

“That’s good, though the bats will still be there.”

We all took a moment to catch our breath and bandage the minor wounds we’d received. Mordo had caught the worst of it, but it wasn’t bad. Dalvin, the most educated in mundane healing arts, cleaned it to make sure no foul bat disease infected Mordo. It looked painful, but the stoic warrior showed no signs of pain.

“What now?” he said.

“Carla said there’d be snakes,” Dalvin said.

“And something else,” I said with a shiver. “Like snakes aren’t bad enough.”

“Snakes, bah,” Mordo said. He pulled torches out his backpack and gave one to each of us.

“No thanks, Mordo,” Dalvin said. “I can see in the dark.”

“Not for seeing. For snakes.” Mordo ignited his torch in one expert stroke of flint and steel. It took me a few strikes to get mine lit. “Snakes hate fire. We hold them off while gnome finds mushrooms. Don’t fight unless we have to. Get out quick.”

“And the bats?” I said.

“Bats like fire any better than snakes?” Mordo said. He seemed confident, but I wasn’t as sure.

“Hold on a minute, my good fellow. Why am I nominated to find the mushrooms?” Dalvin asked.

“Gnome is druid. Druid knows nature things. Dalvin best one to find mushrooms.”

That was surprisingly well thought out, to the point that Dalvin couldn’t mount to legitimate protest. Mordo, despite his outlander speech pattern and tendency to plow ahead, had a brain in there after all.

“Druid no worry. Mordo protect,” the warrior said, smacking himself on the breast of his armor with a clenched fist. In spite of myself, I didn’t doubt him.

We crept through the entrance tunnel, this time with myself in the lead. Dalvin held my torch for me and I ranged ahead, relying on my darkvision and stealth for the time being. The elven side of my ancestry had blessed me with fine ears, and I knew well the faint slither of a snake from my time with the performing troupe. One of our rank, Kendrick, had done a snake-handler act, and I’d been his assistant when I was a lad. The difference between these unknown snakes and Kendrick’s was that Kendrick’s had been magically charmed into docility.

The rough stone passage eventually opened into a large cavern, and one didn’t need elven sight to spot the mushrooms. The glowed a peaceful blue.

“Where are all the snakes?” Dalvin said.

I looked around the cavern. I saw them, or what was left of them. Maybe a hundred snakes lay dead on the ground.

“Odd,” Dalvin said. He started to walk toward the mushrooms. I put a restraining hand on his shoulder.

“Look,” I said, pointing to the floor of the cave. Cords crisscrossed the floor. Dalvin bent to examine a cord.

“It’s like the material on the bridge, but far stickier,” he said.

“I think I know what killed the snakes,” I said. I used my torch to highlight the path of the cords. The walls and ceiling had been lined with the crisscrossing cords. I had a sinking feeling in my stomach.

Dalvin noticed it too. “Light!” he called and a ball burst from his hands to soar into the cavern. The entirety of the cave was a huge web. The creature that had made it hissed and recoiled from the light, disappearing so fast that I doubted I’d seen it.

“Giant spider?” Mordo said, looking about for it with his maul grasped in his hand.

I watched for where I’d seen the spider. There was no crevice or hold for it to have disappeared into. Out of the corner of my left eye, I saw it again, now on the other side of the ceiling.

“There!” I said, pointing with my drawn rapier.

“How’d it move so fast?” Mordo said. The creature was too high above to hit. Maybe it wouldn’t come after such large prey, in such light. It certainly looked big enough to.

“More than one of them?” Dalvin said, looking around.

I studied the one to the left. Suddenly, it just wasn’t there anymore.

“Dalvin, it just disappeared!” I said. “What could it be?”

“Oh, nothing good. We have to be quick if we’re going to get those mushrooms.” He closed his eyes in meditation.

“What do you mean, ‘nothing good’? I can tell that myself. You’re the druid. What is it?”

Dalvin opened his eyes. They seemed oddly serene for a moment. “It’s a phase spider. It can blink in and out of existence.” The matter-of-fact tone of voice he used didn’t actually reassure me. “You boys keep it busy for a moment, will you?” Then, the druid’s eyes turned from serene to beady. In a blink of his own, the gnome got even smaller, his shape changing to that of a rat.

“He can do that? How’d he do that? Did you know he could do that?” I asked Mordo. He shrugged, and resumed casting his gaze to the ceiling, looking for the phase spider.

Ice on my neck, like a tendril of death. The phase spider’s leg sent me leaping away. I tripped in my terror, but held onto my weapon. Mordo roared and lunged his maul at it, but the creature blinked away. I’d lost all track of Rat-Dalvin. He’d probably be all right.

The phase spider had bigger meals on its menu, bigger, extremely attractive meals. Sometimes my beauty is a curse, like when it makes me look delicious in a quite literal way. Something moved behind me, and I rolled away. Mandibles clacked shut on the space I’d just been in. I stabbed at it, scoring a scratch on the spider. Mordo’s maul entered my peripheral vision, but the phase spider went out of phase again, shifting into a different dimension as the maul swung by harmlessly.

Mordo and I hopped about. The spider would appear, snap at me, and then blink away just as Mordo got near me. I wondered why he didn’t come closer if he wanted to hit it, but then realized the warrior had been smarter than me. The spider hadn’t just been trying to bite me; it had left a trail of web around. If Mordo had been closer, he would have been inside it, too. Fear gave me extra oomph, and I leapt clear of the webbing, back toward the door.

“Come on!” Dalvin yelled. He was back in gnome form and standing far up the tunnel we’d entered through. He held the glowing blue mushrooms in his hand.

“Mordo! We’re leaving!” I yelled. The warrior hated to disengage, but his sense took over and he backpedaled toward us.

“Go! Mordo stall it.” He swung his maul in serpentine arch, backward and forward, warding off any sudden attack by the phase spider. He continued his withdraw, though, not intending this to be his last stand.

I turned to follow Dalvin. The crafty druid already had shifted the stone to re-open the entrance. He hesitated, fearing the bats outside as much as the spider within.

The spider, though, had still set its sights on me. Despite Mordo’s whirling defense, it appeared between me and the entrance. I yelled and slashed at it, just as it jutted its mandibles my way. My rapier blade skidded harmlessly off its thick body, but my lunge had carried it just away from its mouth. Mordo’s hammer connected, but if it bothered the phase spider any, it didn’t show it.

“Get down!” Dalvin screamed. I did so, counting on some sort of lightning spell to save us. Instead, like a huge dart, a bat shot through the opening and collided with the phase spider. The two monstrous creatures suddenly found themselves at each other’s throats, such as they were. We stayed down as more bats shot through the gap, attacking the spider.

Mordo grabbed my shoulder and rushed me to the exit, snapping me out of my observations. I turned one last time at the entrance. The spider had finally managed to blink away and was filling the air with webbing as bats darted in and out. Then, it was a sprint across the rope bridge, wobbliness be damned, and into the relative safety of the forest.

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