'Tazi!' she heard him cry in a muffled voice. She crawled over on her knees toward him. When she reached the large pile where she had heard his voice emanate from, she tried to move the debris away to free him. But even as she searched with her hands, she couldn't get a good purchase on any of it. She pulled off her gauntlets, and Tazi was startled to feel something that was not quite rock under her hands. The lump shifted at her touch, and Tazi heard the duergar scream in pain.
'Hold on,' she called to him and drew her rapier. Acting on a hunch, Tazi slashed at the mass and was not really surprised when a strange, viscous fluid oozed from the gash she had inflicted. She did not expect, however, to hear Justikar cry out as though he had been cut, too.
She raised her arm back and prepared to slash at what must've been a monster, but never got the chance. A tentacle, thicker than her own forearm, encircled her waist with lightning speed. Before Tazi could counter the attack, she was lifted bodily and felt herself slammed into the tunnel wall. Dazed, she could see that the lump that covered the duergar had begun to ripple slowly, and she suspected that the creature, whatever it must be, was beginning to digest him.
'Hold on,' she called out again. Though the tentacle had encircled her waist, and it held fast, her arms were still free. Tazi had not released her hold on her rapier even when the creature had smashed her into the passageway. She managed to raise her weapon, point down, with both her hands high into the air. With a deep grunt, she slammed the weapon down and stabbed the tentacle close to where it joined the main body. The blow was so strong that the rapier actually impaled the tentacle to the tunnel floor. Tazi was able to pull away the wounded appendage from her waist and free herself from its limp grasp. She scrambled over to where she thought Justikar was still trapped. She called out his name but received no response, and she began to dread that she might be too late.
As she turned back to retrieve her rapier, Tazi saw a portion of the war axe the dwarf had stolen from the halls above suddenly pierce its way through the center of the creature's body. Tazi grabbed a flap of flesh and began to pull. She groaned with the strain as she pulled. The dwarf popped his head out, and Tazi could see that he looked mostly none the worse for wear. Between the two of them, they managed to tear a wide enough opening for Justikar to extricate himself. He tumbled to the passage floor in a messy heap, and they both lay panting quietly for a few moments.
The ruined mess of a creature simply lay there, and Justikar shoved at it with his foot. All of a sudden, though Tazi wouldVe thought it was impossible, the creature disappeared down the passageway as though something larger had yanked it from the opposite side. Tazi sprang to her feet and grabbed her rapier, but Justikar waved for her to settle down.
'Rock worm,' was all he said by way of an explanation.
'What?' Tazi asked.
The dwarf brushed at himself and sighed. 'The thing's known as a rock worm. I should've noticed it, but I guess I was distracted. They simply expand and adhere to the sides of tunnels and wait for prey to stumble in.'
'Like we did,' Tazi interrupted.
'Hmph,' Justikar grunted. 'They lure their prey in and crush them in their stomachs. They've got two tentacles, one on each end,' he explained.
'So that thing yanked itself away from us by using its other tentacle,' Tazi surmised.
'So rather than wait around and see if it's got a mate,' the dwarf added, 'we should probably keep moving.'
Tazi nodded, and the two of them maneuvered along their knees through a very low side tunnel. Suddenly, Justikar ripped the sleeve he had tucked into his belt into two wide bands.
'Here,' he said to^Tazi and passed one of them back to her. 'Use it to cover your nose and mouth. The smell is going to get worse from here.'
'Worse than how we smell now?' she joked. The dwarf snorted.
When the tunnel widened into a larger vault, Tazi was aghast. She didn't need the dwarf to point out the features to her. They had moved from the cook pit right into the fire. The room was aglow with a flickering red light. And she hastily donned the makeshift mask before the smell of sulfur overwhelmed her and seared her lungs. The entire chamber was filled with pools of bubbling magma, each one nearly as wide as Tazi was tall.
'I think this is why we haven't seen much besides that worm,' she told the dwarf, pointing to the boiling earth. 'What could live down here?'
'Remember those bones,' he reminded her. 'Something does live down here,' he added. 'Something does.'
'Over there, see that opening?' Tazi asked him after scanning the vault.
He nodded, and she said, 'Looks like it's more intentional than just a random fissure, don't you think?'
'Good eyes,' he complimented her. 'Now let's see if we can get there without burning.' And the dwarf, completely recovered from the creature's attack, hopped like a rabbit along the narrow bits of rock that separated the pools. Tazi sheathed her sword and held her arms out for balance. She could feel the heat against their undersides and knew they would burn if she stayed down here too long. Sweat poured down her back and the crease of her chest under her leather vest. Her hair was lank with sweat and hung in stands plastered to her scalp and neck.
She watched as Justikar jumped the last few feet over to the relative safety of the opening Tazi had spotted. The ground crumbled a little and she watched, horror struck, as Justikar pin wheeled his arms frantically to regain his footing. To make matters worse, a quake rocked the chamber at that exact moment. Tazi had to dodge a splash of lava that nearly engulfed her foot and couldn't help the duergar in time. Justikar righted himself, though, and Tazi joined him soon enough on the ledge.
'Let's get this thing,' Tazi shouted over the noise of the quake, 'and get out of here.'
Sure enough, Tazi was right. The opening was not a natural occurrence, but had been hewn from the cave wall. She drew her sword again, and Justikar pulled his axe free, holding it high in front of him with both hands. He nodded to Tazi, and they moved into the room in unison. The place was lit only by the flickering of the lava pools from the other chamber. The glow revealed something had been in there recently before them. Tazi could see that torches were knocked askew, and a small dais had been overturned. There were papers thrown about everywhere, and there was an overwhelming stench, even stronger than the sulfur. She shook her head in bewilderment, not anticipating the chamber to look as it did.
'Did someone beat us to it?' Justikar asked.
'I don't think so,' Tazi replied. 'It looks too random, like someone or something just ransacked the place because it was here. And the smell,' she paused and reached for something to steady herself, 'is overwhelming even with this rag on.'
'I don't understand, though,' the duergar said. 'Na-glatha made this out to be so much of a challenge, and other than a few pitfalls, this has been too easy.'
'You're right,' Tazi agreed. 'If she had truly known how simple this was, she wouldn't have risked bringing someone else into her confidence.' Tazi paused and looked around. 'I think whatever is happening down here is more serious than any of those Red Wizards suspects. I think what's happening down here might be killing everything in its path.'
Before she could say more, the ground started to rumble again, only stronger than the last tremor. Tazi was tossed onto a bookcase that had tipped over, while the duergar braced himself in the entryway until the quake subsided.
Tazi struggled to her feet and said, 'Grab as many of the parchments and scrolls as you can, and let's get out of here before we get trapped down here.'
Together they raced around, stuffing papers and scrolls into their belts. Many of the pages had been ruined, and Tazi wondered again what had done this and where had they gone. She sorted through some papers when another quake struck.
'Move!' the dwarf yelled at her.
'But I think there's more under the bookcase. If you give me a hand, we can-'
'There's no time. Trust me.'
Tazi looked at him and nodded once. She staggered over to the entryway, while the ground moved and shifted under her. It was like trying to run while drunk, she thought to herself. She left the chamber with the
