They reached the bottom of the endless flight of stairs, and Tychus surged ahead. “Follow me!” he cried, as if they were playing hide-and-go-seek with friends.
“Do you know where you’re going?” Renna rasped.
“No, but at least I can read the signs!” the Naga called back merrily. There were indeed signs, inscriptions in a strange, flowing script carved into the smooth stone at each junction. Their guide led them on without hesitation, and soon they had made so many turns that Guyrin lost all sense of direction. These tunnels were large, much to his relief, a good four meters tall and perfectly round. No tool of diamond, stone, or glass had ever touched these stone passageways: the sides were perfectly smooth and unnaturally even. The glowing fungus grew in straight rows at head height as if it had been cultivated there. Who made all this? Are the Naga so advanced? Impossible. He was trying to distract himself from the fact that they were dozens of decameters under the earth, and he wasn’t having much success.
Shouts from the pursuing Naga echoed strangely in these corridors, and he couldn’t tell if they were ahead or behind. Tychus began to take more time at each intersection, listening and weighing his options before choosing their path. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were lost,” Nira said as he pondered a signpost. He shushed her irritably and went down the left fork without consulting the sign any further. That’s not encouraging.
Finally, they came to a broad cavern with ten or more entrances. “Here we are,” the Naga proclaimed proudly. “The hub for the Home City. I knew I could find it. Now we’re in good shape.” He looked around at his human companions in the dim twilight of the tunnels, radiating pride in his accomplishment. “What a mess you’d be in without me.”
The cries of their pursuers suddenly crested, and angry, armed Naga poured into the room from one of the other entrances.
“Thank you so much for your help,” Gamarron said woodenly, and he stepped forward to protect them. He was one man against thirty. There was no hope of survival. Nira came to his side, clutching the lump of the Chaos Shard through the fabric of her pants. Fearing she would pull it free and use it, Guyrin scampered away from her, hugging the side of the tunnel.
Gamarron took the girl by the arm, pulling her hand away from the Shard. “Nira, do not. It’s too much, too quickly. You will harm yourself.”
Nira pointed to the charging Naga. “You’d rather they harmed us?”
They were interrupted by an earth-rending bellow that echoed through the cavern. Their attackers slid to a halt, looking about in confusion. The sound was painfully loud. It sounded like a hawk’s shriek buried inside the roar of the world’s largest garou. It made Guyrin want to piss himself. There was no telling where it came from – it was simply too loud. That question was quickly answered, though, when a nightmare from the depths rocketed from one of the other tunnel mouths and barreled into the midst of the attacking Naga.
“Demon!” hissed Gamarron in shock. “What is that doing here?”
Tychus had taken shelter behind Kest and was peeking over the broad boy’s shoulder. “They wander into the Passages sometimes. I’ve never heard of one so far south!”
Guyrin couldn’t get a good look at the thing. It was tearing through the ranks of the Naga effortlessly. The creatures were screaming defiance and fighting fiercely, but great gouts of blood splashed in all directions from their midst, and Guyrin heard panic in their screams. The demon reared up, holding one of the Naga over its head, and Guyrin finally saw it clearly as it tore the creature in half with its bare hands. The demon was a bloody purple all over, fading to a dusky black at the extremities. It stood nearly three meters tall, and it was naked and unarmed. Two massive horns crowned its head, and its mouth was a vertical split that filled its whole face, lined with multiple rows of sharp teeth. Gnarled spikes of bone protruded from its shoulders, elbows, and spine. It cried out in its own language against its foes, beating its fists against its massively muscled chest as it emitted a series of coughs, grunts, and clicks. It had wiry thatches of black hair sprouting from its chest and groin, but its head was shorn except for a crest of dirty white hair that stood up like bristles between its horns. Its long, dirty phallus dangled crudely between its thighs. The head of its member was barbed.
One of the Naga took advantage of its pause to thrust a spear into its ribs, and the fire-hardened wood dimpled against the beast’s hide before sinking in less than a thumb’s length. Roaring its displeasure, the demon picked up the offending Naga and heaved it ten meters across the chamber, where it left a smear of blood on the wall and slumped bonelessly to the ground. The Naga fighters were fierce, but even Guyrin could see the monster would kill them all eventually. He’d have felt grateful for the thing’s interference if not for the fact that he and his friends were almost certainly next. Terror filled him as he ran through all the probable ways his body would separate under the force of the demon’s claws.
Gamarron pounded a fist into his other hand, grimacing. “A passage all the way to my homeland! I never imagined demonkind could spread this way. If my koda brothers were with me, we could handle this one easily.”
“Now it’s time for the Shard,” Nira declared, thrusting her hand into her pocket.
“No!” Guyrin shrieked, reaching out toward her. “Please, no!”
They all looked at him as if he were crazy. Huddled against the wall, tear-streaked and wild-eyed, he couldn’t really blame them. “Too close,” he babbled. “The resonance! It makes me worse, ruins my control. I’ll pop.” He made a bubble-bursting sound
