ALL NOVEL Chapter 45 – Floor 5: Part 6
Chapter 45 – Floor 5: Part 6
The tunnel looped around the bore of the Pit, coming to a stop at the very bottom where they could see the lowest portion of the Pit for the first time.
The walls were wet with liquid, and the ground was soft, almost spongy. Mathew’s feet sunk into the moist earth for a few inches. The Aether was thick in the air, making a blue fog that clung to the ground around his ankles.
The wind made an almost rhythmic breathing sound as the draft pulled the atmosphere from the tunnels and up through the bore of the Pit. Looking around, Mathew heard his companions gasp in shock.
There were bodies embedded into the walls. Most were only corpses, their decaying bodies rotting where they had been placed. But some were recent, and based on their uniforms, they were the soldiers and staff of the base above.
“Why are they here?” Alvia whispered. The Mimics and the other creatures had been intent on devouring their victims. Why were there dozens, if not hundreds, of bodies being stored at the bottom of the Pit?
“Don’t go near them.” Ken warned, holding up his hand in warning to Oscar, who had been approaching the dead to see if there were any still alive.
“Mimics?” Mathew asked, and the teen shook his head.
“No, they just aren’t right.’ I can’t explain it, but we shouldn’t touch them.” Ken replied. If it were enough for the quiet teen to speak up, then the others would respect his opinion. He hadn’t been wrong yet.
“Alright. What are we supposed to do now?” Mathew responded, gesturing vaguely around the circular Pit. There was only the single tunnel they had already travelled down, leaving the bottom of the Pit empty and without an exit.
“I’m not sure. We haven’t seen a Greater Mimic or anything else that could cause the power outage aside from those Mouthers. Maybe we’ve already cleansed the Pit and need to fix the power?” Oscar asked, confused as to what their next step should be.
“I don’t think it would be that easy. Nielson said that the Pit was a warren of Caverns, but we’ve only seen one tunnel and that cave with the bones. We’re missing something.” Mathew stated, walking slowly to the center of the oval chamber. Far above him, the artificial lights the army installed shone brightly.
He could even see the ‘cover’ they had installed over the opening of the Pit to seal it. Made of concrete and steel, it blocked the sky above them. The lights flickered momentarily as power was once again almost lost.
His boots made squelching noises with each step, and the closer Mathew came to the center of the Pit, the deeper they sank.
“Do you hear that?” Ken asked suddenly, holding up his hand to grab the group's attention. Mathew stopped walking, and the area was once again silent.
“Hear what?” Alvia inquired, not hearing a thing.
“It’s like something is… crawling? Wait, it stopped.” Ken replied, frowning for a moment. The teen suddenly knelt on the ground and placed his ear against the moist earth beneath them. He was silent for a moment before his head shot up again.
“There’s something beneath us.” Ken hissed out, quickly stepping away from the center of the chamber.
“Everyone back against the wall.” Oscar ordered, and the others rushed to place themselves against the solid rock.
Fiddling with his hammer, Oscar opened up his inventory as he slogged slowly to the middle of the circular chamber. He placed a small, round object on the ground and observed it carefully before giving it a slight tap with his hammer.
Mathew could hear it begin to hiss as soon as he did so, and Oscar ran as fast as he could toward the others. His boots sent up a spray of water, but it didn’t hinder him as he scurried. Mathew plugged his ears against the expected explosion and wasn’t disappointed.
The ground shook with the force of the detonation, and a pillar of flame shot skyward. Mathew had expected there to be debris flying about from the blast, but oddly, the earth beneath the bomb didn’t shatter.
Instead, after the initial blast, there was another series of ‘snaps’, and the ground beneath the Pit began to sag. The earth tilted, gradually forming a steep slope until a final crack rang out, and the floor gave way.
Luckily for the group, they were close to the wall and were protected. Mathew found that he was standing on the ledge of a deep ravine. Something had created a layer of dirt and webbing across the Pit to protect the deeper portion beneath.
Like a spider’s web, the group had been standing on an artificial structure.
“There!” Ken shouted, pointing at something that was skittering around the wall beneath them. It was similar to the Mouthers they had seen before, only this monster had long tentacles that would suction onto the smooth wall to propel itself forward.
With a mass of eyes and teeth, the creature sprang up from beneath the destroyed web. It flailed its tentacles, and Mathew could see all of its thousands of eyes locked onto the group. The thing was massive, easily several thousand pounds of flexible and writhing flesh.
“Mathew! Fling this!” Oscar shouted, pulling another item out of his inventory. Not even looking at it closely enough to see that it was another orblike object, Mathew flicked a finger and sent it careening toward the approaching monster.
It caught the creature in the center of its chest, and unlike the other bomb, this one didn’t explode. Instead, it let out a ‘whoosh’ of greenish-grey mist with force. The vapour instantly surrounded the monster, and it let out a horrific screeching noise.
The mist began to eat away at its flesh, and several of its tentacles had melted away in the second it took for it to land on the ledge beside them. The monster had large gaps in its flesh that bubbled.
“Hah! I traded an Alchemist for that solution a couple of floors back! Makes hydrofluoric acid look like tapwater.” Oscar bragged while the creature continued to flop around in pain. It was giving off a horrible stench that made Mathew gag.
“That’s how you-” Oscar was cut off as one of the creature’s tentacles shot out toward them from behind its back. It slapped into the ‘Forger’ before anyone could react, sending him crashing into the wall with a sickening ‘splat.’ He hung there for a moment before falling back to the ground and not moving.
“Christ, Oscar!” Mathew shouted, already moving toward the fallen man while Alivia drew a card.
“Come on….Yes! Meteor Swarm!” She shouted as little balls of fire suddenly hovered above her head. They swirled around her in a slow pattern before shooting forward toward the monster. Each struck with tremendous force, exploding on impact, and the creature screamed again in pain.
Before the last meteor could strike, the monster slid off the ledge and plummeted into the darkness below.
Mathew reached Oscar just as the first meteor detonated. Through the flashes of light and the roars of the spell, he carefully turned the ‘Forger’ over. Even with his enhanced body stat, Oscar was in terrible shape. The impact had broken bones, and the man was bleeding profusely. But he was breathing.
Reaching into his inventory, Mathew took out a potion of healing. Popping the cork with his teeth, Mathew poured the potion on the worst of Oscar's wounds. The red liquid was instantly absorbed once it made contact with his skin, but it seemed to do nothing with the severity of Oscar’s wounds.
Taking out another, Mathew poured it on him while turning to Ken who was standing in shock.
“Give me whatever potions you have!” Mathew shouted, and Ken fumbled with his silver wristband. His hands were shaking too badly to work the interface quickly. By the time he had pulled a potion out, Aliva had returned to their side.
“Don’t bother. He’s done.” Alivia said, and Mathew turned to look at her angrily.
“No, he’s not! Ken, give me the gods damned potion.” Mathew cursed, snatching the potion from the teen’s hand.
“Mathew, look.” Alivia said again, kneeling down beside him and drawing his attention to Oscar. Sometime during Ken’s attempts to withdraw the potion, the ‘Forger’ passed on. His chest was no longer moving, and the blood flowing from his wounds had slowed.
Their party had lost its first member.