A Monster Life Ch. 100-102

100 - Queen

The centipedes led both halves of the party deeper into the mine, first through the mining tunnels, then through rougher and irregular tunnels dug out by the centipedes themselves. 'I think we're inside their nest.' said Ulric through the familiar link.

'I believe we are as well, darling.' said Elzbieta as she looked around as much as possible from her bound position on the centipedes carrying her. 'We are entering a larger chamber now, as far as I can see.'

Ulric followed the leading centipede inside one, and was glad to see it was the same chamber where his girls appeared at the other end. 'My loves! I'm glad we're not separated.'

The centipedes led them all through another tunnel while Ulric checked on each of the girls, and noticed what he thought was missing. 'Isa? Where are you?'

Isazea sneaked from cover to cover with the spider golem, staying barely out of sight of the centipedes at the back. 'Behind you. I hid when I saw centipedes take the others from the office, then followed.'

Ulric sighed silently in relief. 'I'm glad you're not hurt or worse, cutie. And know we have more chance of escape while you're not captured like us.'

Isazea bit down on doubts rising in the back of her head. 'I don't know what I can do, but I'll try to find a way.'

Ulric smiled slightly. 'I don't know what I can do now either, but I hope we'll find an opportunity to do something about this mess. For now we'll have to go with the flow and wait.'

In a lower chamber, dimly lit by fluorescent moss and some thin, crystal veins in the rock, the centipedes stopped around a low rise in the floor with a pile of items behind it. Small statues, daggers, books, tools, stone, wooden, and iron artefacts in all shapes and sizes lay scattered around. 'What's with the mess?' asked Tipper.

Valdys understood as she sensed the magic power. 'All those things possess magic. These must all have been gathered from the city and areas around it.'

Ulric peered into the darkness in the back, which seemed to be another entrance. 'We're dealing with another wizard?'

The answer came in the shape of a woman passing through that entrance. But as she stepped forward into view, the party realised she was no woman they'd ever seen before.

'What the..' said Ulric as he looked over the centipede, whose black and segmented body was more or less shaped like a human and possessed a pair of segmented legs, and extended from her behind as that of a centipede to twice her length. The legs at each segment fanned out as if she wore a dress with a long trail, and two long antennae sprouted from the top of her humanoid shaped head. Ulric was glad she did not have segmented insect eyes, but simply plain black ones which were less disturbing to look at.

Her legs moved in elegant waves as she came closer. She looked slowly at her captives while her antennae seemed to caress the air between, and her gaze rested upon Ulric in the end. Iphigenia noticed the trembling of the antennae. 'Uh-oh.'

Ulric glanced at her. 'What do you mean, uh-oh? You think she intends to eat me?'

'I have a hunch she might in a certain way.'

Valdys chuckled. 'I think you might be correct.'

The centipede moved closer to Ulric and probed his head and upper chest with her antennae, then spoke in soft clicks. 'You will provide.'

Ulric already imagined himself on her dinner plate. 'Provide? Like in food?'

'Mate. Time is soon.' she said, and moved backwards. 'Store them.'

'Wait!' said Ulric as he took a step forward, but two centipedes blocked him. 'Mate? As in you and I?'

She ignored him as she exited the chamber, and one of the centipedes hissed at him. 'Follow!'

His girls were carried off into another tunnel, and he followed them. They ended up in a tunnel with many small cells where each of them was released in, and the entrance blocked with a mesh of sticky threads, spun by shorter and thicker centipedes. Iphigenia stretched and twisted her body. 'Those things grip really tight.'

Ulric gazed left and right through the mesh of his cell. 'Is everyone all right? No wounds?'

Yingshien sat down against the back wall. 'Just my pride.'

Elzbieta leaned against the doorway of her cell. 'We're at a disadvantage without our weapons. Val, any idea what these creatures are?'

'I went through the books after they captured us but I couldn't find anything.' she said. 'They apparently didn't appear until some time after the disaster. Could be they always lived unnoticed and their nest became exposed when the mountain collapsed.'

'But what was that, female thing?' asked Kaui. 'There was no other like her.'

'Haven't come across anything like it. I can only guess she's a mutation caused by an accident, an effect of all those magical items, or formed over many generations.'

Tipper sniggered once. 'I don't think she'll create less mutations by mating with a bloodwolf though.'

Ulric groaned. 'We have to think of a way out before she comes for me.'

***

Isazea noticed the centipedes relied less on their eyes than their feelers, and draped a piece of worn canvas around her to mimic just another piece of rubbish while sitting perfectly still when centipedes were near. Like this, she proceeded her way into the chamber with the queen's collection after the others had been taken away, and hid in a corner to observe the strange species. To her surprise, centipedes arrived carrying the party's weapons and the spider golems Ulric had taken with him, and added those to the collection. The queen returned after a while, nestled herself on the pile, and fell asleep. The centipedes who moved around with seemingly purpose, now looked more lost as they went one way and the other, and Isazea suspected the queen had an active influence on their behaviour. She sneaked closer along the walls every time the chamber was empty apart from her and the queen, and eventually huddled between a few remains of statues at the rear of the pile. She frozen when the queen rose her upper body.

The queen spoke in a few clicks, and a centipede arrived with a small bowl on its back. The queen drank from it, then curled up again.

Isazea saw her suspicion confirmed when the centipedes acted with focus when the queen was awake, and returned to their more erratic behaviour when she fell asleep again. It had Isazea pondering how she could take advantage of that, and the scattered parts of a life size statue in the pile gave her an idea.

***

Three centipedes appeared at Ulric's cell and removed the mesh from the opening. 'Follow.' clicked one at him.

He growled almost inaudibly while sensing more of them standing ready at a short distance, and followed the centipede to the queen in her chamber. She lay on her pile, and gazed at him while he was led to the middle of the rise in the floor. 'Leave.' she said and gestured at the centipedes, who crawled away at once. She softly clicked and hissed as she moved from the pile, and probed him with her antennae as she circled him once. 'Need your strength.'

He cleared his throat. 'Look, I'm flattered that you want me, but I'm not into forcing anything, especially when my loved ones and friends are held against their will.'

She stood before him and swept her antennae back. 'Others not concern me. I eat their power later.'

Ulric held back his snarl. 'Why do you want their power?'

'Grow. Become stronger. Keep us alive. Need you for stronger offspring.' she said and slid her hands down the front of her body to her thighs, where Ulric couldn't mistake the similarity with most female species he knew of.

He cleared his throat as he suppressed any curiosity regarding the biology and the act involved. 'What makes you think that's even possible?'

The queen moved backwards, and the centipede part of her body crawled onto her pile of magical items. 'Queen came from Queen who gathered these, and took outsider mate with power, eating others. Queen came from Queen before her who did the same, and Queen came from Queen before her many times.'

"Val's guess is correct, generations accumulating power items and genes from whoever had capabilities strong enough." Ulric thought. He straightened his defiant stance. 'Not going to happen with us. Isa, now!'

The statue Isazea had constructed burst out of the pile underneath the queen, and wrapped its limbs around her upper body. She jerked and fell aside, and scattered everything as she trashed her centipede half around in effort to hit or grab the thing that attacked her.

Isazea leapt from her hiding place in the back of the chamber and ran towards the tunnel with the girls. Ulric bolted towards the few centipedes running towards the queen, and kicked the first one hard against the wall before slamming his fist down on the second's head. The others scurried away in confusion as he had expected while the queen lost control over them in her predicament.

Isazea pulled out Conchim's daggers which she had sneaked out of the pile earlier, and cut the threads of Tipper's cell. 'Your weapons are in the chamber!' she said, and hurried to the next cell while guardian centipedes were confused at the intermittent link with the queen.

One by one, the girls hurried to the chamber, where Iphigenia dodged the struggling queen and tossed everyone's weapons towards them from the scattered mess. The queen realised the situation suddenly and stopped her struggle. 'You will not escape!' she hissed, and concentrated on her commands to her warriors and workers.

More centipedes arrived from every direction with better focus on their task, but this time, the party was prepared for them.

***

Muni examined the ground. 'Those things captured several people in this office only a short time ago.'

Elyta upended one of the packs and shifted the contents with her foot. 'Good quality clothing and gear. These weren't some stragglers hoping for a lucky break and treasure.' She looked at Tarrence. 'You don't suppose?'

He gazed at the maps on the ground and the location for ore testing. 'Assume it's them. If not, the better. We'll follow the tracks. I have a feeling we'll find the artefact there.'

After passing through several mine tunnels, a couple of natural ones, and then the ones carved out by neither man nor nature, Elyta moved close to Tarrence. 'It's too quiet.' she whispered. 'We should have encountered some of those things by now.'

'If the assumption is correct, those bugs might be too busy dealing with that party.'

'Could they have escaped and being chased right now?'

'Or they're being feasted upon. Doesn't matter as long as it keeps the bugs away from us.'

A quick shiver ran down Elyta's spine at imagining being eaten by them.

Muni stopped. 'Noises up ahead.' he whispered. 'Sounds like a ruckus.'

Tarrence listened for a moment. 'Indeed. Move with caution.'

Closing in on the noise, it became clear the cause was a fight. They sneaked a peek into the chamber where the girls and Ulric held back a seemingly never ending stampede of centipedes. 'I do not want to face that.' said Muni.

Tarrence looked over the scattered magical items and caught sight of their goal. 'You'll need to because the artefact is there.'

Muni followed his gaze to the stone, lying on the ground in the middle of the fight. 'Fuck.'

Coëllo sniggered. 'No, fight.' she said and balled her fists. 'Fuck is for another time.'

'Avoid fighting.' said Tarrence. 'Don't waste time on anything but retrieving that stone, Muni. We will only make a move when needed.'

Muni groaned inside at the prospect of rushing through the hectic scene. 'Taking my ability to the maximum again.' he muttered, tensed for the sprint, and bolted at the first opening he spotted towards the artefact.

Kaui sat in a protected corner where she made a potion at Ulric's request, but she still kept an eye out on her surroundings in the off chance a centipede came from an unexpected side. It took a fraction of a moment to register the one jumping across a writhing centipede at the other side of the chamber. 'The enemy party is here!'

Muni snatched the artefact as he ran, dodged a centipede thrown by Ulric in his fight, and bolted to his comrades. He cried out when he smacked into an invisible wall and bounced sideways to the ground. Grunting as he rubbed his bruised shoulder, he noticed the undead sorceress thrusting her hands while conjuring up shields to block centipedes, and her quick glances towards him.

Tarrence pulled out his daggers and jumped up from their hiding place. 'Now we fight.'

Elyta and Coëllo followed at once while Gigacks threw counter spells at Valdys. 'Retrieve the artefact!' said Tarrence. 'That's priority!'

Iphigenia cut down one centipede with a slash between two segments of its body, and lunged at Muni. 'Of all the moments they could have shown up.'

Elzbieta smashed one of her opponents aside with her blade. 'It's not unexpected though when they're after the same artefacts as us.'

Muni saw the young rogue heading towards him and tossed the artefact at Coëllo. She reached out but Tipper hit it away with her spade. Yingshien almost caught it but an arrow from Elyta forced her to dodge it, and the artefact tumbled in front of Tarrence. He snatched it but could only take one step before Ulric blocked his path. He didn't hesitate at throwing the artefact to Muni and making Ulric's reaction to catch it too late. Muni spun around as he reached out to it, but jerked his hand back at the beam of fire shot in front of him.

The seniovi summoned by Handil grabbed the artefact in mid-flight and dropped it into the hands of Yingshien, who stood against the wall in the middle of a bunch of centipedes. She pressed herself back and spat out a constant beam of fire close around her to ward off the giant bugs.

Tarrence barely dodged the jab from Ulric, who punched at him straight away after he threw the stone, and grumbled as he watched the dragon putting herself in a secure position not only with her fire breath, but also by making use of the centipedes around her. He had no choice. 'Retreat!' he shouted as he fled to Gigack's position.

The others of his party followed him at once, and Ulric punched an attacking centipede to the side. He looked at the queen, who still struggled with the golem statue while Isazea also used the spider golems to harass her and keep her as distracted as possible. 'Kaui, how far are you?'

Kaui soaked a rag in the mixture she had just finished. 'Ready, master! Isa, catch!'

Kaui threw the rag towards Isazea, and she used one of the spiders to catch it. It sped to the queen and jumped at her face. With its legs firmly embracing her head, it smothered her with the rag clamped between its body and her face, and held on until the queen fainted from the anaesthetic. Most of the centipedes lost their focus and fled the dangerous intruders of their nest, and the few who still fought were cut down fast.

Ulric looked around. 'Everyone all right?'

Elzbieta moved a dead centipede aside with her foot. 'We're good, darling.'

Valdys went up to Yingshien, who handed her the artefact. 'It is the real thing, my love.' she said, and put it away. 'Great work keeping it safe like this, Ying.'

The dragoness gave Handil a nod. 'Thanks to a little bird.'

Ulric chuckled as he watched Handil stroke the bird's head while it perched on her lower arm. 'You all did great teamwork.' he said, and stepped up to the sleeping queen. 'As was the brilliant idea from Isa.'

She blushed. 'I only had it because I saw the statue parts in her collection and sensed they could be used with my golem spells.'

He gave her shoulder a gentle squeeze with his paw. 'It's still a talent to come up with a plan from things you see around you.' He thought the queen looked very peaceful asleep. 'Sorry, babe, but I'm not into liking people who hurt others for their own gain.'

Iphigenia moved next to him. 'So, if she was a good girl, you would have given her offspring, Wolfie?'

He raised an eyebrow at her. 'I have no answer to that very hypothetical question.'

She sniggered. 'Let's leave it quickly behind us then, and leave this freezing land. I am so in the mood for a warm bath and hot meal.'

He pat her rear. 'I think we all do. Best we travel with as few stops as possible and skip going through the town and city in case demons or centipedes try to ambush us.'

***

The party took their first rest out in the open, huddled in a shelter made by putting the capri in a circle and pulling a large cover over them. Snow on top kept them hidden from view in the unlikely event that anyone looked for them. Valdys examined the detached hand of the golem statue Isazea had taken with her. 'Your instincts are correct, Isa. This material is saturated with an ore that seems highly compatible with magic abilities.' She closed her eyes and searched through the library. 'I understand now the cause behind the destruction of Mur. This is a very rare and extremely valuable material. They hollowed out the mountain to obtain every little bit they could find in their quest to sell it, ignoring safety completely.'

Handil sat upright. 'Wait, if it's so valuable, there would be people mining it right now even in these circumstances.'

Valdys returned the hand to Isazea. 'I found this information in highly classified papers. It's likely there were some books hidden in a vault in the library when I created the spirit copies. Only a few people knew about the ore. They were in key positions to keep it hidden under the guise of mining for other precious metals, and hid the material in plain sight as a statue until they could sell it. With all the people who knew about this now dead, no one is looking for it.'

'Smart plan.' said Ulric. 'Apart from the whole mining into disaster thing.' He looked at Isazea. 'What do you want to do with it?'

Isazea caressed the top of the hand and fingers. 'I always wanted to improve Oono, but his materials can't hold the spells for it. I want to see how far I can take this one.' She looked up at Valdys. 'If you'll help me.'

Valdys sensed her excitement rising. 'Oh, I'm curious to see the result. I'm in.'

101 - In and Out

Syminar coughed and waved away the dust from the cave-in, although it didn't help much. A single torch barely lit the narrow tunnel where she lay on the floor, and a groan explained the warm and heavy weight on top of her. 'Kilmin? Are you all right?'

Small rocks and dust fell from his back as he pushed himself up. 'I've been better, but I don't think the damage is anything that'll last for days.' He sat back on his knees. 'You?'

She sat up. 'Nothing much, thanks to you pushing me in here.'

The two minotaurs peered into the dark tunnel while the dust settled. 'We should move and see if there's a way out before dwarves trap us.' said Kilmin as he stood up, and helped Syminar up from the floor.

She wiped her rear and took the torch. 'If they collapsed the entire entrance, we might be in serious trouble.'

She led the way through the service tunnel, and headed back towards the mine entrance at the first junction. Their worst expectation came true when they walked into the rubble blocking their path. Kilmin pulled a couple of rocks away, but the tunnel was packed too tight to dig their way through. He sat down on a small boulder. 'Do you think we can we still reach the side entrance to the mine from here?'

Syminar nodded. 'That way shouldn't have been affected by what they did here, but there's the risk of encountering dwarves on the way if they decided to spread out to work their way out of the mine.'

Kilmin wished he still had his sword, took a deep breath, and stood up. 'We'll have to be careful then.' he said, and followed Syminar again.