At the Gates of Hell

✧₊⁺

When we had ventured deep enough within the mine, the overworld music had completely stopped. Only the careful taps of our footsteps echoed as we progressed. There was something rather unsettling about the silence as I had gotten used to the constant noise.

We managed to snatch a few of the golden light crystals from the wall on the way in, and it helped to give us some visibility for at least a few steps.

“I thought we’d be walking into a warzone, but we haven’t seen a damn thing yet. What’s the current threat level, Archie?”

“…”

“Earth to Archie, you in there?”

While he continued to float robotically alongside the party, he kept up his silent streak and showed no emotion on his interface.

“Couldn’t get you to shut up earlier…” I mumbled to myself.

“My Supporter isn’t responding either.” Kururu tapped her wristwatch with her acrylic fingernail. “Maybe it’s ‘cause we’re not in view of the big crystal tower thingy?”

But Archie was able to communicate with me just fine out in the real world. Underground versus surface shouldn’t affect our signal. Something is off…

“There must be something jamming communication pathways externally. And if I had to guess, intentionally.” Thresh said. “Eyes up folks, we don’t know if we’re the ones being hunted down here.”

“Wouldn’t that be ironic—“

A screeching noise pierced our ears, like a thousand people screaming out at once in agony. Rocks on the ground shook, and a swarm of bats evacuated the cavern above our heads. After a few moments it stopped, but my ears continued to ring.

“What the heck was that!?” Kururu winced as she exchanged glances with Thresh and I.

A dozen green eyes lit up the dark in front of us, and a clicking noise echoed throughout the space. Reminiscent of when I fought the spider creature inside the saloon in Placita, a chill ran down my spine.

“We’ve got company!” Thresh called out, drawing his scythe from his back.

Several bugs emerged within our view numbering about six in total. They resembled giant crickets, and their mandibles dripped with saliva at the sight of us. A tough-looking exoskeleton covered their bodies, and above them were nameplates that read ‘polymorphic cricket’.

“Tank you’re with me up front, you two back there lay down some cover fire, and clean up anything that gets behind us. We have to carve a path for the rest of the raid team.”

“Roger that, hot stuff!” Kururu pointed her staff forward as the star at the end glowed with sparkly light.

One of the bugs shot forward into the shield of barrel guy, driving him backward a few inches. He brought his sword down into the creature's neck and it fell to the ground, dead.

Before we had a moment to exhale, two more crickets tried to take advantage of the moment and get a hit in on Thresh. They bounced off of opposite sides of the wall, trying a pincer maneuver, but Kururu and I were ready.

“Oh, no you don’t, creepy crawly! Star… power!” Kururu swung her staff in the direction of one of the bugs and a glowing star shot out and vaporized the front half of the insect's body in a single hit. It fell to the ground with its hind legs still kicking.

I fired two shots from my revolvers, one sailed a bit to the left, but the other took out the other attacking insect with a clean shot through the head. Two bugs remained. Thresh quickly dispatched them with a tornado-like technique as he swung his scythe around at great speed, turning them into mincemeat.

I couldn’t help but notice how much weaker these enemies were than the polymorphic spider I had faced before and especially the Wendigo in the following battle. We waited a moment for another wave but then started to hear a faint sound.

“Help us…please…we’re trapped…monster!”

There was something unnatural about the cries as they almost seemed to overlap with one another in a panicked amalgamation of voices. We decided to press forward, and that’s when we saw a glowing blue light at the end of the tunnel.

We happened upon a large grotto with a glowing body of water that lit up the space, and a huge waterfall pouring into it. The walls around the space were limestone with vibrant layers of terrestrial rock and shiny patches of nickel. There was a wooden deck in front of the water and more abandoned tools.

“I thought I heard the voices coming from this way. Or am I going crazy, and you guys are just a figment of my imagination!?” Kururu looked around curiously, speaking loudly over the sound of the waterfall. “Are you real, Cowboy?”

Kururu poked my shoulder and I shot her an incredulous look.

“No, I heard it too,” Thresh said. “It’s possible they continued past this grotto into one of the adjoining chambers, but they all lead to dead ends.”

Our tank sauntered over to the water source, staring at his reflection while Kururu ran around to look at everything like a hyper child. Meanwhile, Thresh glanced around anxiously, muttering to himself as he did.

“Control told me it would be here, what the hell is going on with the Supporter system…”

“Control?” I looked at him, puzzled.

“Ah, it’s nothing.” Thresh waved it off. “But we don’t have any leads, and there’s a surprising lack of enemies down here too, now that I think about it.”

“Not even bug corpses!” Kururu added from across the grotto.

Maybe it would have been better to go straight down the right path toward the corruption’s heart to get this dungeon over with. But we all agreed to check if there was anyone to save. I had no room to complain now, even in hindsight.

“Couldn’t hurt to have a look around then, I guess,” I said. “But something about this place gives me the creeps.”

“What do you think we should do, Tank?” Thresh asked the barrel guy, but he didn’t receive the usual response immediately. “Uh, you alright, guy?”

We looked at barrel guy, who had a bead of sweat forming on his brow. He clutched his sword and shield with enough grip force to turn his knuckles white. He took a couple of steps back from the water.

“I… don’t like it.”

The rumbling returned with force, but it was much more intense than before. We were thrown to our backsides as a huge creature emerged from the water. Its body was slender and bony, it had a hunched back and a siren for a head. It wore a coat of what looked like scaled armor.

“Hunters…interfere…will die!”

The same warped combination of voices, male and female, emitted from the siren on the beast's head before it let out the same ear-piercing screech we heard before. Our close proximity to the noise was debilitating as I pressed my hands over my ears.

“It’s an abnormal, fallback now!” Thresh yelled.

We turned to run towards the main exit, however…

The shaking caused a rockslide to occur and chunks of limestone fell from the ceiling. As they did, they covered the entrance we had emerged from with debris.

I saw the scales of the massive creature as it stepped closer. Or I thought they were scales at first, but upon closer inspection, it was what appeared to be hundreds of individual polymorphic crickets.

“What now!?” I turned to Thresh who looked exasperated in his own right.

“Over here!” Kururu shouted, waving her arm for us to follow. She had booked it to the other side of the cavern.

We sprinted as fast as we could and the creature stomped after us. A small cave opening came into view as we ran, a pit more like as it sloped downward at a 45-degree angle with no bottom in sight, but we had little choice. Thresh hesitantly slid down first. We waited a split second, and he called up to us.

“It’s an alternate escape route, come on down!”

Our tank was still some distance behind, and we watched as dozens of crickets dropped from the body of the siren-headed monster and began hopping towards him.

“Hurry, barrel dude!” Kururu waved more frantically than before. “I’ll give you my share of gruel back at the cafeteria if you survive! You like that?”

“I… like it!” He gasped as he ran.

“Let’s help him.” I sighed, asking Kururu for some long-range support for our tank companion. We fired projectiles at the crickets who were hot on his trail until he finally ran past us into the cave to join Thresh further in. I watched as he rolled down the slope.

“Tally-ho!” Kururu was the next to slide down with her rollerblades.

I wasn’t much for dark spaces, but I also wasn’t about to take on the army of bugs and the monster by my lonesome.

“Here goes.” With Archie beside me, I took a leap of faith into the darkness.