How They Brought the Good News

Petra's muscles tensed as her eyes gazed with cold, hard clarity at the nightmarish entities that began to exit the portal. It was immediately clear that holding the doorway as a bottleneck would be suicide.

"Um, Cecilia..." she said. "I think we should run."

Cecilia nodded, helping Geyr to his feet.

"You can support him, and I'll protect the rear... I probably can't match his stride." Petra added.  

Cecilia and Geyr ran along the dimly lit corridor with Petra trailing slightly behind them. She listened for the approach of the summoned fiends and heard nothing, but the sight of glowing, bloodshot eyes caused her divinity to flare to life.

She skipped backwards, maintaining her motion, but dropping her pace to allow the creatures to close in on her. As the lead beast lunged, her divinity surged through her limbs. Petra delivered a powerful cut to sever its reaching claw, and she leapt away.

The creature stumbled, slowing the advance of the following beasts that forced their  way past the wounded monster aside to surge forward. Gambling on her agility, Petra reversed course, and launched herself at the closest beast, plunging the sword in her right hand into its head.

The momentum of the falling beast sent her backwards. She hit the ground and rolled, righting herself in time to drive the sword in her left hand up into the underside of another beast's jaw. She struck it twice more with her other sword, cutting off its head.

She continued to run until she caught up with Cecilia and Geyr. She could see the light ahead of them. Cecilia was yelling for Nadja to close the door.

* * *

Nadja paced in front of the heavy metal maintenance door wondering if she should go after Cecilia and Petra. She felt uneasy, as if they were being watched. She paused with her arms crossed in front of Macy, who was sitting atop their piled baggage.

"Are you able to cast a spell that can tell if someone is watching us?"

"What do you mean by watching?" Macy asked. "Do you mean scrying, or eavesdropping, or what?"  

"I mean someone hiding nearby and watching us."

Macy yawned and stretched her arms. "There are several ways of doing it. I could summon a spirit to look around, or I could project my consciousness into the aether to scout around. There are dozens of clunkier ways of doing it as well."

"But can you do any of them?" Nadja asked impatiently.

Macy snorted contemptuously. "Of course, it's child's play."

Nadja was about to ask Macy to perform one of the spells, when she heard the sound of running feet echoing from the depths of the maintenance corridor. She stepped past the threshold and waited, with her shortsword drawn. After a moment, she could hear Cecilia yelling for her to close the door.

Nadja made Macy get up, and the pair began pushing against the heavy watertight door until it was cracked open just enough for Cecilia and Petra to get through. Nadja continued to scan their surroundings, and saw four men emerge from hiding to approach them from a distance. 

She decided to ignore them for the moment and get the door partially shut, but leaped backwards in alarm, as a man stumbled through the doorway. Relief filled her as Cecilia and Petra emerged right behind him.

"Shut the door!" Petra shouted. Her cloak was dirty and stained with black ichor. She staggered over to the door along with Cecilia and began pushing.

"Stop!" yelled one of  the four strangers, who were now right up to them.

Then chaos erupted as a hideous scaled head and grasping claw emerged through the partially opened door. The creature was pinned by the pressure of the four girls pushing on the door.

Macy began to scream incoherently as the men froze in terror at the raging wall of teeth that was trying to get through the door. Nadja gaped in astonishment as Julian Geyr scrambled from the ground and joined them in pushing the door.

"Push!" cried Cecilia. "Help us shut the door!"

The men stared at each other in uncertainty. The door buckled as the girls were briefly forced back before regaining their footing.

"More of them are coming! Help us push!"

The men began to move toward the door hesitantly. The beast bellowed, spurring the men into a sprint. They slammed into the door crushing the neck of the struggling beast. The stink of sulfur filled the air as the fiend roared in pain. Cecilia stepped away from her efforts and drew her sword, bringing it down to split its head open. Another blow sheared away the exposed portion of the monster, allowing them to slam the heavy watertight door shut. One man began to turn the handwheel in the center of the door to drive the locking bars and seal the door.

* * *

As everyone slumped to the ground behind the safety of the thick reinforced steel of the watertight door, the two groups looked at each other in mutual relief.

"Who are you?" asked Cecilia.

The men looked at each other in confusion, until they all focused on a man with a short beard, who seemed to have been silently voted as their spokesman.

"We—we are simple Galliener tourists," he said with a soft, melodic accent. 

"What are we going to do?" asked the man beside him, nudging their leader.

"We need to inform the authorities." stated Cecilia.

Outside the heavy metal door, the scratching of claws and the low, resonant roars of the demonic beasts began to shake the reinforced steel.

Nadja pulled out their map as everyone gathered around her, and quickly identified the fastest route back to the first sub-level. Cecilia asked her to identify a new route that would allow them to pass by the anchor sites where Ruprecht and Wiltern were stationed to alert them of the situation.

Cecilia turned to the man with the short beard. "Are you able to get out on your own?"

The man nodded, avoiding her gaze, and their group hurried off with no fanfare.

"They were very suspicious," commented Petra. "Their accents were so fake."

Cecilia looked at Petra blankly. "Our priority is getting the chancellor's son to the upper command post and alerting the authorities before those creatures get into the upper levels."

"Should we bring our gear?" asked Nadja.

Cecilia shook her head. "We can recover it later once the situation is settled."

"Well," said Geyr interrupting them smoothly, "I must confess, this wasn't quite the picturesque cultural tour of Gardanmah my tutors had planned for me. Though I suppose your academy's field activities have grown... remarkably unorthodox." His voice was calm and entirely devoid of panic, though his jaw was tensed.

Cecilia turned her attention to Geyr, while Nadja stared at him in disbelief. Macy was panting, taking deep breaths to regain her composure.

Geyr tilted his head, assessing the girls with sharp, calculating eyes.

"Cecilia Gullfot von Holtzaten, isn't it?" Geyr noted, ignoring Nadja entirely as he addressed Cecilia. "You've handled the present situation with commendable poise. I imagine you didn't anticipate your expedition concluding quite like this either."

Cecilia didn't have time to continue the niceties. "Master Geyr, we need to go right now," she declared firmly.

As the group moved out with Nadja leading the way and Macy close behind her, Geyr's pace fell, drawing Cecilia and Petra along with him.

"We need to keep up Master Geyr," Cecilia reminded him gently.

Geyr smiled at Cecilia with composure. "Yes, of course, but I need to speak to the two of you privately for a moment."

Cecilia looked at Petra before returning her attention to Geyr as they slowed even more.

"You mustn't allow anyone to know that I was abducted, do you understand? We cannot allow Asuvan to think that Eigenland was involved in any way as the cause of this situation. These monsters were summoned by a rogue wizard that we stumbled upon."

Cecilia stared at Geyr gravely. She understood that in was often a human response to deflect culpability, but to attribute the situation to the random whims of fate or to blame them upon inexplicable wizardly malice seemed dishonest.

Petra nodded in acknowledgement, while Cecilia picked up her pace, deep in thought.

* * *

"The lot of you are insane!" Ruprecht stared at the disheveled Geyr. "Did you fall and strike your head, Master Geyr?"

"Rothaermel is dead," Cecilia said insistently. "This is not a fantasy. We need to leave right now."

Ruprecht stared at them wide-eyed. "I don't believe you..."

Geyr gave Ruprecht a dismissive look. "You should listen to Lady Cecilia," he said. He turned and gestured for Nadja to lead them to the next anchor site.

* * *

When the party reached Cavern 3B, Wiltern saw the group enter, and sprang to his feet. He swept back his cloak to reveal a freshly polished suit of pale gold armor that reflected the haggard faces of his visitors and smiled with smug superiority at Cecilia.

"Ah, Master Geyr," Wiltern said in surprise. "You look... rather worn..."

"You need to return to the upper level," Geyr told Wiltern. "Immediately."

"Master Geyr?"

"There is a horde of monsters after us. You should leave now."

Wiltern looked in the direction that Geyr and Cecilia had come from and saw nothing.

"Perhaps you would like some tea," Wiltern said solicitously.

Geyr rolled his eyes. "Believe me or not. The outcome will be on your shoulders."

Motioning for Nadja to lead once more, Geyr and the group headed out to reach the command post.

* * *

A series of dull, concussive booms echoed from behind the sealed metal door. Then a deafening screech tore through the air. The iron bolts holding the heavy watertight door blew outward in a shower of sparks and shattered stone.

Stepping out from the maintenance tunnel, Balthazar Hoch stood at the front of his battered group of men as dust swirled about them. A swarm of hideous scaled monsters flooded from the darkness, parting around them, and streaming into the dungeon surroundings.

He looked around for the men he had stationed outside, but nobody appeared.

There was the nagging sensation in the back of his mind that perhaps he had failed to mention an important piece of information to them, but he pushed the thoughts aside.

Geyr had managed to escape, but his beasts were entering the lower dungeons and also making their way through the sewer system to the upper level, so at least the decadent aristocracy would feel his justice.