A Bard's Tale
‘Theor led his party through the jungle, hacking and slashing with his sword, damp with sap, at the vines and branches that blocked their way. Beyond the leaves and branches he could see it. The ancient forgotten fortress Yorl had learned of months prior. Mighty. Impregnable. And in ruin.’ Rein danced around the tables of the tavern and slipped onto a stool joining a table of men dirty from the days work. ‘Enormous statues of dead kings rose either side of the entrance. Moss covered and drenched in ivy. Still they stood clutching their greatswords ordained with jewels of long forgotten ages. The jungle threatened the fortress on all sides, the bulk of it separated by a valley. A stone bridge, crumbling and broken, was the only path across.’
‘Oh get on with it. I don’t have the coin to sit here drinking all night,’ a rowdy patron with knotted hair spouted from the corner of the tavern. A number of others murmured their agreement, tunics soiled from their days labours.
Rein breathed deep and left his stool for the perch by the fire. At least there it didn’t smell quite so strong of sweat. He smiled to his audience, all weary miners and farmers happy to be distracted for an evening. Better than listening to their wives nagging or their babies wailing. If any should be so lucky. Rein gazed across his enraptured audience. A hairy fellow picked food out of teeth. Another whispered to his friend. A third ordered from Duncan the Barkeep. Passive eyes watched, waited. ‘Our explorers reach the bridge but find it broken…’
‘Look, there are planks across the gap,’ Yorl said.
‘Rotten most like,’ Bernhal growled. He folded his gauntleted arms against his black steel breastplate.
‘You can jump then,’ Ricard pressed his foot against one of the planks. The drop was far, too far to survive.
‘I can’t leap in all this,’ Bernhal hammered his chest. ‘You go first, check the wood.’
‘I’ll go,’ Theor said. He didn’t look down. Six steps later and he reached the other side. ‘See, nothing to worry about.’
Yorl hurried across, the planks creaking under his weight. Ricard followed and paused halfway. He looked over the edge and turned as green as the jungle. ‘Come on,’ Yorl waved him across.
Bernhal was next, the heavy armoured soldier. ‘If this collapses.’
‘More loot for us,’ Theor said.
‘I was going to say, fetch my body and return it to my mother.’
‘Not a chance,’ Theor answered.
Bernhal growled and started across. The wood creaked. Millipedes and spiders emerged from the cracks. Bernhal saw glistening moss on the plank. He edged forward, sliding his ironclad foot an inch at a time. The planks sagged.
‘Come on. Quicker the better,’ Yorl said.
‘Don’t rush me rogue,’ Bernhal hissed. He held his arms out wide and shuffled across the plank bridge. The leftmost plank groaned, creaked, and cracked. A hundred spiders emerged from beneath the moss. Bernhal leapt and landed with a crunch sat Yorl’s feet. The leftmost plank slipped away into the valley below.
‘See, speed,’ Yorl said.
‘Come on, no point waiting out here,’ Theor stalked towards the entrance between the two kings of old. The darkness beckoning him inside their ancient fortress.
‘How come the fires burning if the place is abandoned?’
Rein sighed and searched for the questioner. A rat-like face looked back, mug of ale in hand. ‘They magic fires?’ The gaunt man asked.
‘Yes,’ Rein said, unthinkingly. ‘Theor approached the blackness but Yorl reached out and yanked him back. ‘Look!’ He pointed above the door. Etched into the stone and coated in moss were words of a dead tongue. Their warning long forgotten, their maker long dead. It read, ‘Peril to the uninvited. Curse to the grave treader,’ but none could read it. ‘Dead words of dead men,’ Theor said and dove into the darkness,’ Rein blew out a candle.
‘If they couldn’t read it. How do you know what it said?’ A man leaning on the bar asked. He was grey haired and his hands were calloused front and back.
Rein pinched the bridge of his nose and continued, ‘Bernhal lit a torch from the pyre and followed the others inside…’
‘Watch your step!’ Ricard wrenched Theor to the side. Bernhal approached, his torch illuminating the skeleton lain across the stone. A giant spike through his chest, a bag of coins clutched in his boney hand. ‘Our first find,’ Ricard pinched the rotten leather pouch from the skeletal hand. Three bones came away with it. He delved inside and found copper coins.
‘I didn’t venture through jungle for copper,’ Bernhal growled.
‘There are treasures inside,’ Yorl said, as he had done through the weeks of travel to reach the unnamed and ruined fortress.
‘I’m more bothered by what killed him,’ Theor said. He tested the tip of the spike with his thumb. ‘Ow, that’s sharp.’
‘We should continue on,’ Yorl pulled a roll of parchment from his sleeve. ‘It says here we go twenty steps inside and take a right. Then a hundred steps and a left where there’ll be a staircase that we climb.’
‘Did you pay money for that?’ Bernhal held his torch closer to Yorl.
‘A bit.’
Bernhal snickered.
Theor led the way, counting the twenty steps and taking the right turn. The passage continued, narrow and dark and lined with cobwebs and roots. Water trickled through the rotten mortar lines and gathered in little pools amidst the uneven stone floor. He counted a hundred steps but there was no left turn. He continued on for another hundred but still there was no left turn. Instead the passageway opened up into a room with four doors, long rotten, and four paths.
‘You wasted your money,’ Bernhal approached each pathway in turn but his torch revealed nothing but the damp stone.
Yorl muttered to himself, ‘Without me we wouldn’t be here.’ No one responded.
‘We could split up,’ Ricard said, he rested his hand on his rapier hilt.
‘So you can kill us off one by one and take the treasure for yourself? Not a chance,’ Bernhal said.
‘I would never,’ Ricard’s hand clasped around his weapon.
‘We don’t have any treasure yet. No, we stay together,’ Theor said. He stood in the middle of the room pulling the end of his short, pointed beard. ‘We go this way,’ he moved to the furthest right.
‘Why?’ The other three said in unison.
‘For no other reason than instinct,’ Theor smiled back. He dove into the darkness, Bernhal’s torch licked the edges of the shadow enough to see a step ahead. The walls narrowed. The ceiling lowered, and soon Theor’s jerkin was scuffing the walls.
‘I think you picked wrong,’ Bernhal’s pauldrons rang like a bell each time he hit the wall.
Theor was thinking of a witty response when the stone moved beneath his foot. A click sounded and echoed through the stone. He spun around, shouted, ‘Get down,’ and slammed Ricard into the wall. The air rushed by him. Bernhal was prone, Yorl smothered beneath him. Two more bolts pierced the air. ‘Anyone hurt?’
‘A little,’ came Yorl’s muffled answered.
‘I saved your life. Thank me later,’ Bernhal struggled to his feet. Two silvery grooves lined the back of his black steel armour. Theor chose not to tell him.
‘I’d rather sit with the shrieking wife and screaming kid than listen to this,’ a short man downed his ale and made for the door. ‘Cheers for the ale, Duncan. Not for the entertainment.’ The barkeep nodded to his patron, ‘Anytime Glen.’
‘I don’t have anything better to do,’ another said.
‘Me neither, Farlin,’ a man with dirt beneath his nails finished his drink. ‘I’ll have another Duncan.’
‘Right away,’ the barkeep said.
‘Right. Where was I?’ Rein glanced across the room. A man in wool travelling clothes, armed with bow and sword, sat on a table to himself staring at Rein. The traveller lifted his ale to Rein. ‘Ahh yes…’
Theor stalked through the dark corridors, listening out for other traps, when the passage opened up and became a staircase. The party climbed and emerged into a massive hall. Bernhal held his torch to the darkness but the flames failed to pierce the velvet veil. The walls were sandstone, free of roots and trickling water, the floor fell away to a chasm. A narrow bridge lay before them, wide enough for one. ‘Should we go back?’ Yorl said.
‘Now? What does your parchment say?’
‘Waste of money that,’ Bernhal spat.
‘Nothing about a narrow bridge.’
‘Then we should cross it. Any treasure will be where people haven’t been,’ Ricard said stepping ahead of Theor. He darted across and vanished into the shadows. ‘Come on, I need the light.’
‘Take the torch. It’ll be hard enough to balance without it,’ Bernhal passed the light source to Theor.
Theor began his crossing. Carefully setting one foot in front of the other. He was glad he couldn’t see beyond the darkness either side of the bridge. Ricard was a vague outline ahead pressing ahead with slow but certain steps. A metallic din echoed high above. The room shuddered and metal shrieked against metal. An axe blade flashed past two foot ahead of Theor. Light flickered off the steel as it rose and halted before swinging back. ‘You have to be joking,’ Theor swallowed hard. The screeching hinges of other axes echoed in the darkness ahead. ‘Ricard, look out.’
‘I know. I know. I hear them.’
But you don’t see them, Theor dashed passed the first one and waited for the next to swing across. He counted how long it held before pendulum-ing back. The axe swung back and he darted behind it. ‘I can see you now. Hold on,’ he called to Ricard. His old friend didn’t listen. Heavy footsteps shuffled behind him.
‘Don’t rush on ahead. Can barely see without the light,’ Bernhal said. He swore under his breath. ‘First the sweltering jungle and now this. I need to find jobs up north.’
‘Well with the share you find here you won’t need to,’ Yorl said.
‘Yeah, right,’ Bernhal said.
‘Look out!’ Yorl cried. Steel rang on steel. Bernhal cursed, his voice echoed higher and higher. The soldier grunted and Yorl screamed and swore. ‘You’re damn heavy,’ Yorl said.
‘It’s the armour and the sword,’ Bernhal bit back.
‘Are you alright?’ Theor shouted back. He peered into the shadow and could see a lump he guessed was Bernhal lying on his side. Yorl knelt behind him.
‘Yes. All fine,’ Bernhal growled.
‘Our fine soldier almost fell to his doom. Nothing to worry about,’ Yorl’s voice quivered.
‘Come on. Longer we’re here more chance we’ll succumb to the traps,’ Theor said. He traced the bridge across, darting between two more axes, before reaching the other side. Ricard waited between two staircases, on going up. The other going down. ‘Which is it?’
‘I have no idea,’ Ricard said. ‘Yorl. What did the parchment say of staircases?’ His words carried into the shadow and recoiled off the far wall back at them. Silence fell.
Bernhal appeared from the shadow first, helm in hand and his hair slick with sweat. Yorl followed, pale and shaken. ‘I don’t know. It’s all lies anyway.’
‘Glad you finally see it my way,’ Bernhal said. He breathed a sigh of relief when he set foot on wider ground. Yorl hurried to the far wall, glancing up and then down. ‘Does it matter?’ Bernhal said.
‘Down,’ Theor said.
‘Why?’
‘Instinct,’ he smiled and scurried into the darkness.
‘It’s the wrong choice,’ Ferlin said.
‘Aye. This Theor’s going to get them all killed.’ Others murmured agreement.
‘I don’t care. I’d rather hear the Maid and the Scoundrel,’ another burped.
‘That’s just ‘cause they shag at the end, Jon,’ Ferlin said. The tavern erupted with laughter and Jon turned puce.
‘No, no it isn’t,’ Jon stammered.
‘Let the bard continue,’ the adventurer said from his cubby along the wall opposite Rein.
‘Thank you. So, our party descend into the blackest depths of the forgotten fortress…’
The smell of mould lingered in their nostrils and the deeper they went the thicker the air became. ‘This can’t be right. Treasure’s kept at the top of towers not the bottom of them,’ Ricard said.
‘Treasure is stored in vaults and vaults are underground,’ Yorl riposted.
‘I’ll ignore that given you’ve been wrong about everything else.’
‘I knew where the fortress was. I knew how to traverse the jungle. I knew the entrance and which way to take.’
‘Which could have been a trap,’ Bernhal interjected.
‘Aye,’ Ricard said.
‘Shut up,’ Theor said. ‘If there’s nothing down here we can go up. If there’s nothing up there well we’ll search another section. This fortress is huge.’
‘Theor led them down, deeper and deeper…’ Rien crouched as he told his tale.
‘Does anybody die in this? I like it when they die,’ a man with half his teeth said. The man next to him got up and found a stool on the other side of the tavern.
‘Tom,’ Ferlin said.
Tom looked up, ‘Yes?’
‘Do you want to lose the other half of your teeth?’
‘No, I just—‘
‘Then shut up.’
Rein waited for the drunk men to settle and continued, ‘The air stank of rot and soon a faint hissing rippled from below…’
‘Do you hear that?’ Yorl said.
Theor paused and turned his ear towards the darkness below. He held his breath and hoped it was his ears playing tricks. He was wrong. ‘Snakes. We can deal with snakes.’
‘Snakes? You think it’s snakes? In here. Deep underground. What are snakes eating in here?’ Yorl said. His voice shrill.
‘Take a breath, Yorl,’ Bernhal growled. ‘Snakes eat rats. Rats live everywhere.’
‘Have you seen one here? I haven’t,’ Yorl said, the whites of his eyes showing above and below his irises.
‘We’re not turning back now,’ Theor continued down the steps.
‘Come on,’ Bernhal shoved Yorl.
‘If I must,’ Yorl said, his shoulders slumped.
The stairs ceased and opened up into an empty rectangular room. Sconces clung to the wall, full of ash and dust. Mouldy rags clung to bones littered in the corners of the room. Theor held one against his arm, then his thigh, ‘Human in size. But where’s the rest of the body?’ He tossed the femur into the skull-less pile of bones.
‘Shh,’ Yorl cupped his hand round his ear. The four of them stood in silence listening to the stale air.
The air shifted and the stench of rot climbed up Theor’s nose. ‘Well whatever killed them isn’t in here.’
‘Shh! Do you not hear that? Breathing.’
Theor turned his ear to the darkness. He strained but heard nothing, ‘Bernhal, come on.’ The pair explored to the centre of the room and found a chest in the darkness. Large enough for two men to hide inside. ‘Now that’s more like it. You two, come closer.’ Yorl and Ricard followed. The chest was dark wood and banded with iron. Flecks of paint clung to the curved lid, pitted and grooved with age.
‘Hold on,’ Bernhal unslung his bastard sword from his back and gave the chest a prod. A splinter of wood chipped off with a dull echo. He narrowed his eyes and grumbled wordlessly.
‘It’s a fancy box,’ Theor set his hands on either side of the lid. His mouth went dry and his imagination ran wild with visions of gold. He began to open the chest. He gasped as the sight of gold coins and priceless gems shone in his eyes. A hand yanked him back and Theor fell on his backside. ‘Even split,’ he yelled over the gnashing of teeth.
‘Get back,’ Ricard shouted. The fighter swiped his rapier in large arcs at the chest. Bernhal hoisted his sword on to his shoulder and slammed his helm on.
‘What the hell is that?’ Yorl tripped and fell backwards.
Theor got to his feet to see four long, thin limbs emerge from the chest. The lid was covered with teeth and a mass of flesh filled the body of the chest. A long tongue reached outward, licking at the floor, at Ricard’s rapier, and reaching for Theor’s foot. The creature laughed, a horrid screeching thing. Theor drew his sword and slid his kite shield onto his arm. ‘What is that?’
‘A mimic. An ancient evil, thought extinct. Never heard of one being a chest before,’ Bernhal grunted and held his massive two handed sword above his head. He swung down in a heavy, wide arc, that crunched into the mimic’s leg. The monster screamed and scuttled to one side, yellow blood oozing out of one front limb.
Ricard thrust at the mimic. The monster dodged and wrapped its fleshy tongue around his blade. Ricard wrestled left and right, blood sprayed out from the tongue but still it held on. The mimic shrieked and pulled the rapier from Ricard’s grasp and tossed it into the darkness, the sword clattered on the stone. The mimic leapt at Ricard and bit into his arm. Ricard screamed.
‘Bernhal!’ Theor shouted and charged at the four limbed chest. He hacked at the back legs while Bernhal brought his sword down like a hammer on the lid of the chest. The mimic kicked and shrieked as Theor carved ribbons from its pale flesh. The wooden lid cracked from Bernhal’s swing. Wood splintered and gore welled in the cracks. Ricard scrambled free, his right arm a ruin. The mimic lashed out with it’s tongue and caught Bernhal’s leg, knocking the heavy armoured soldier on to the floor and dragging him closer. The front two legs reached out and began pummelling Bernhal in the face, the chest, and stomach caving in steel with heavy hit.
Theor weaved between the two back limbs and stabbed into the cracked lid. His sword bit flesh and he drove it deeper. The lid closed and he buried his sword to the hilt. The mimic wheezed, blood dribbled out from the between the teeth, and the legs fell still. Theor sucked down air, his wrists ached. The legs faded to nothing and soon Theor found himself standing over a broken wooden chest. He freed his sword and heard the tinkle of coin. He threw back the lid and found gold, rubies, sapphires, and more staring back at him. Bernhal struggled to his feet, battered and bruised. Ricard and Yorl too. All laughing in the deep dark.
‘But just as they celebrated a strange wind blew through the fortress and the bones rattled… Not one would escape with their lives,’ Rein finished giving his best creepy stare to the patrons.
‘Then how’d you hear the story?’ The words slurred. A few others, including Jon and Farlin, echoed the question.
‘Maybe he’s the coward, Yorl? Trying to hide that he’s rich,’ someone else burped.
Rein rubbed his eyes and approached the bar, ‘A pint please, Duncan.’
‘Aye.’
‘You’re not very good.’
Rein turned to see the adventurer beside him, ‘Not the worst introduction I’ve heard.’
The adventurer placed a few coppers on the bar, ‘Let me get that for you.’ Duncan set the ale on the bar and slid the coins into his palm. He nodded his thanks.
‘Cheers,’ Rein took a long mouthful of dark ale. ‘That’s better.’
‘I have an offer for you. How would you like to live one of these tales instead of merely telling them to a room full of drunks?’
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I've always wanted to write exactly this type of story: one that perfectly captures the feeling of dungeon diving in games like Dark Souls, Dragon Age, or D&D. Bravo, well done.
Good stuff. Felt like a D&D adventure.