By David C. Daoust
Page 3 of 10
The altar made his mouth water. While it was too large for him to move, the fact that it was in the room was a very strong indication that no other raiders had set foot in this old ruin. Shady raiders had a tendency to come back in greater numbers for the big stuff, which meant of course if there were riches to be had, the old gnome would have them. Ruins untouched were a rare find these days.
The markings on the floor stopped him in his tracks though, he did not recognize the language. He was eternally weary of foreign magical traps… even a mundane trap could be buried somewhere in that mess. Efreet gave the room a sweep over with his eyes, and backed away from the door, deciding to come back to it later, when he could focus on the writing without wondering what was ‘left’ of the stairway…
As Efreet turned around the screech was suddenly before him though. He crouched low and brought his sickles before him defensively. In the distance he could make out the thing, some form of plant monster. A fungal beast… it was shaped roughly like a mushroom, though slimy green with yellow spots and nasty tendrils wrapped like cords around it, hanging fungus growing off it. It was quite a bit bigger than the gnome, four or five times. The thing had no eyes, Efreet assumed the periodic screech was some form of sonar. It shuffled along its stalk creeping forward on dozens of tiny tendrils flickering at the ground.
As it approached, Efreet detected the immediate danger of the thing, the spores that it puffed from its mushroom head were clearly acidic, effecting the moss covering the old stone brick walls… melting it. It suddenly seemed to take a deep breath after its last screech, and Efreet had no choice but to leap behind the door and slam it shut…
Efreet fell back as the puff of noxious gas hit the door with such force, that it was forced between the cracks around the door, and above, the barred window let in a huge puff of the noxious acidic spores. Efreet scurried back further, worried that the acid would burn him if it made contact, and then scurried further still as the notion crossed his mind it may burn through the metal hinges and force the door down on top him… He heard the wood sizzle, though the metal seemed immune to the effects. The Screech came again, and then another in the distance much further off. Two of the fungal beasts certainly explained the conflicting locations of the noise.
Efreet listened as tendrils of the fungal beast slapped at the now weakened oak door. He was trapped, and realized in his flight from the door he was standing further into the scrawled foreign writing on the floor than he would have consciously chosen to. At least these sections of the writing were safe, worried still that some trap lurked in the rest of the room, and unwilling to move closer to the sizzling battered door, he had no choice but to search the floor around him.
He made short work of the symbols he was already on, trusting that there was nothing going to spring out, if he shifted his weight from them. He moved forward then studied the crevices of the brick that made up the floor for anything suspicious. The ink used in the writing seemed ordinary enough, even if he didn’t understand the glyphs; he was becoming far more confident that they were nothing more than decorations. Perhaps used in some form of ritual. He cleared more and more of the floor, interrupted only briefly by the sudden screech from outside the door, and the constant thumping of the tendrils slamming against the door.
