Chapter 98 - Scents of Urgency

We stood at the entrance to the tunnel that had been hiding in the manor. I was almost disappointed in how plain it was. I guess it made sense, not all secret entrances had to be fancy or particularly secret, but it was literally just a tunnel at the bottom of a ladder, hidden in a kitchen under a rug.

I sighed, looking into the darkness ahead of us. It wasn't as though I was unused to going headlong into the murk and shadow of underground mazes, but you have certain expectations with dungeons. Sure, they could have strange twists and surprises, but in most cases, a dungeon was a dungeon and worked a certain way. The only thing our current situation had in common was that it was dark, underground, and someone was very likely to get hurt.

I shrugged mentally. There was no use in worrying about it more than I had already.

"Ok. Everyone ready?" I turned, looking at my crew. Everyone was armed and as armored as they wanted, and Cori had thankfully gotten all of the masks she had made repaired, so hopefully we wouldn't have to deal with dryad pollen, any strange mana, and gods above willing, sewer stink.

She had, of course, given me an earful about breaking mine, despite all my protestations that it wasn't technically my fault. I guess it didn't really matter, as long as the thing worked.

"So what's the plan here? Normal clearing pattern? Something different?" Cori asked.

"No. I don't think we have time to do this the slow and careful way. We're on a time crunch with no idea exactly how much time we've got to work with. We might have to completely play this fast and loose and hope for the best. Which I hate." I grumbled as I considered all the factors.

"Mad dash down the hall, and fight anything that comes at us? Haven't done that since the first training dungeons." Myth laughed. "Sounds stupid, but you're right."

"Smitty likes running! Hurry and fight! Stab evil trees! Save town!" The kobold wuffed eagerly, her tail whipping back and forth hard enough that it nearly knocked Mariana on her rear.

That's what you get for standing so close behind a Kobold, I thought to myself. As much as I wanted to say it out loud, now was not the time for verbal fencing.

"Ok, everyone. Masks on. Let's not wait till it's too late." I said, pulling mine over my face. The thing smelled weird, something I hadn't really noticed before, but I'm sure was part of whatever artifice Cori had to employ to build the things.

I'd have to dig into it later.

"Hey! Don't leave quite yet!" A voice called down the hole in the ceiling to us. I looked up to see Danica. With an undignified grunt, she dropped down with a thud, landing on her rear, before popping right up on her feet, acting like nothing at all had happened.

"What's up, Danica? Did Walther or Lord have some other thing to add to our list of tasks?" I was glad the mask hid my expression.

"Nah. This one is for me. I have a few items I think might help, and I'll need your input on how well they worked when you all get back." She said, taking a satchel off her shoulder.

How lovely. We get to be test subjects for whatever she had cooked up in a hurry.

"Do you really think this is the time for that sort of thing?" Cori piped up.

"No better place to stress test a new design than in a life-or-death situation! Better data!" Danica flashed her sharp-toothed grin at us.

She started handing out some metallic cylinders to each of us, and some things that looked like the sort of goggles some artificers use.

"These look like goggles," I said, holding the things up to look at them.

"Well, that would be because they are, in fact, goggles." She rolled her eyes at me as though I were some kind of idiot. I won't lie, I felt a bit angry about that, but decided to keep it to myself.

"And why are you giving us goggles, exactly?" Myth asked, putting the things on, giving her a comically bug-like appearance.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

"A combination of reasons. Concentrated enough, dryad pollen can cause hallucinations if it gets into your eyes. Also, the gas in these canisters, which is a powerful, arcane herbicide, can severely damage your eyes if you get it in them. Also, you really don't want to get whatever gunk is in the undercity into your eyes. These are basically the same goggles that the undercity workers use." She explained, making sure that they were fitted properly on each of us.

My head felt encased in the weirdest armor. I looked around at everyone and noted that everyone looked kind of ridiculous.

"Is this gas the same stuff you used on that dryad I was fighting earlier?" I asked, making sure the cylinder was stowed in my gear bag.

"Exactly thus! It was a little project I've been tinkering with for a while now, just in case, but never really got a chance for a field test. So take lots of notes, you hear!" She jabbed a finger at us.

"Yes, yes, Danica. We'll take plenty of notes. Can we please get going? I'd like to get the life or death adventure out of the way as soon as possible!" Mariana snapped. I could sense her glare despite not being able to see it.

"Right, right. Sorry! Anyway, I wish you all the luck down there. Don't die." She gave a little two-finger salute to us and ascended the ladder, closing the hatch behind us.

"That is a very strange woman. And she works at the school?" Noah asked, his tone mirroring how I felt.

"She does indeed. Brilliant at what she does, but equally weird." Eira shook her head with a chuckle.

"Smitty likes her. She has good teeth." The kobold nodded.

"Enough chatter, folks. We've got to get going, and quickly!" I ordered.

I turned towards the dark tunnel and whispered my spell poem to generate a ball of light to float in front of us. Myth and Eira did their own little rituals to summon companion orbs.

I nodded, satisfied that we wouldn't be charging blindly through the dark, and began to jog forward, my team and the knights in tow.

I was grateful that this tunnel was devoid of traps, monsters, or ambushes of any kind. Things progressed very smoothly as we moved quickly.

Which, as we proceeded, was making me deeply suspicious. That one mage had gotten away on a teleportation circle to warn someone that we had found their secret base. Either they were confident that the dryad would deal with us, or they were planning something very nasty, and we were barreling headlong towards it.

Suddenly, I ground to a stop. Not because of some horror or trap. No.

It was the smell. I could smell it through the mask, despite it working its magic, plus all the herbs.

It was foul, the very definition of foul. I had smelled some terrible, awful things, but there was nothing compared to the filthy foulness of the Revenstahd undercity.

We weren't even fully in yet, but the smell was awful.

"Turn the little nob on the side of the filter." Cori barked at us, showing us on her mask what we were talking about.

My nostrils were assaulted by a floral scent that nearly set me off coughing, but I was grateful for it replacing the stink of filth.

"Thanks, Cori. Seriously, this mask contraption you made is great!" I said, breathing easier.

"I can't take full credit. It's a modified undercity worker mask. I've got a few friends in the sanitation patrols, and they let me take a look at it, and I got an idea to modify it for dungeon use. And then I kind of kept tweaking it to what you've got now. Hoping to sell it to the city to fund....you know." She jerked her head towards the knights.

Right. Her little rebellion project. I had no idea if the Everspring were involved in her village's problems, but better safe than sorry.

"Hey, everyone? I think we're getting closer to where we need to be." Myth said, sending her light orb ahead of us slightly.

I wasn't entirely sure what she was talking about until I saw a tiny movement. At first, I assumed it was some kind of vermin, but then I realized what I was looking at. It was a root. A writing little root. Like what we saw attached to the victims in the false dungeon under the manor

I drew my sword and quietly indicated for everyone to follow suit. We moved up slowly now, not wanting to attract more attention than we likely had already.

My jaw tightened as I saw what I was afraid to see.

The tendrils grew thicker, more numerous. They sank into bundles of vines that looked like cocoons of some horrible insect, and held inside them were people. Some I sadly recognized, but many others I didn't. I didn't even recognize some of the species of them, which startled me.

"This is really bad, Noah. Some of these are from non-alliance lands. I'm seeing Minos, Gnolls, gods above, even some Vrex. How far does this madness go?" Adhara swore, her tone a mixture of shock, fear, and anger. It was the most emotion I heard from her, and I completely agreed.

"Felestil has much to answer for. I don't think he'll be getting the mercy of execution for this one." Noah's voice was like steel, determined and sharp.

"If there's one good thing, they don't seem to have the little crystals in their chests. Or at all. I don't feel any dungeon mana anywhere around here." I noted.

"That means these people are just for feeding. Or storage? I'm not entirely sure about what these dryads are trying to do. Everything about this is so messed up, I'm having trouble making sense of it all." Myth said, scratching her head as she looked at the bound people.

"This entire thing is an absolute nightmare. Even if we succeed its going to take weeks to save all these people. Not to mention all the possessed people." Eira added.

"I think we can worry about that later. I can see a light up ahead. I think we're about to get to the hub. If things are this bad now, it's going to get worse ahead, the way our luck has been going." Mariana pointed straight ahead.

"Well. I guess we should get this over with." I said as I tightened my grip on my sword and led the way forward. I had a feeling deep in my gut that this was going to get ugly in a hurry, and we were going to be lucky to be able to walk away from this at all.