Acolyte of the Pleasure Goddess Ch. 05-06

Author's Note: This chapter ended up a lot longer than I intended, about the twice the length of any others! What was meant to be a short dungeon romp turned into a crawl. I considered uploading it as two separate submissions, but all of the sexy stuff happens in the second half. I thought it would be bad manners to upload a dry chapter, so it's kept as just one document. So if you're looking just for the sexy times, skip to where it says "Chapter 6," about halfway through. Thanks for reading!

Chapter Five

"That's the place. There, over yonder," the scout said. He was a short, gaunt man with a wiry black beard. He had mumbled his name when they first met outside of Ankreot, but Delyssa couldn't remember it and had not found the courage to ask again. They had left the village the same morning they had arrived. Brynwa had argued in favor of staying long enough to re-quip and rest at the tavern, but Vael and Cenhera had formed the traditional line of battle and disagreed, and this time Delyssa shared their opinions. The idea of a real meal and a real bed filled her with a yearning almost sexual, but she knew that if she had those comforts now she would never be persuaded to abandon them to explore a dark, underground and monster-filled ruin.

The scout was pointing a grubby, swollen-knuckled finger from the hilltop they stood on to the adjacent peak, where high stone outcroppings and low brush covered the terrain.

"It's about halfway up the west face, between some boulders," the scout continued. "It might take some lookin' but this is as far as I go."

"How much of the tunnel did you explore?" Vael asked.

The scout spat. "Only until I saw it breach into a chamber. As soon as I saw brickwork I got out and sent word to the guild. After that it was just waiting." He cast a wary eye over the party to indicate that the waiting persisted for too long.

Vael pressed the reins of Dereac into the scouts hand and followed it with a handful of silver pieces. "My thanks for your help. Take our animals and stable them at the Daft Dragon Inn. We should be back to collect them soon. You may ride Brynwa's horse but not Dereac here."

The scout spat again. "I'll walk 'em. This ain't horse land," he grumbled, but took the other two sets of reins and began to lead the animals back down the slope towards town. "Best of luck on your quest, adventurers!" he called over his shoulder.

Delyssa shivered, apprehensive now that they were at the site of their quest. The journey from where the manticore attacked them had been a tense one, and she still caught herself frequently casting an eye up and scanning the clear skies. Now that they were about to crawl into a dungeon where they knew that at least one monster lurked, she felt reluctant to continue. But Vael set off down towards where the scout pointed, and Delyssa and the others followed.

She used her staff as a walking stick on the descent — the first real use for it so far on this journey. Cenhera walked up alongside Vael, hopping downwards from one rock to another to match the paladin's long strides. Brynwa walked close behind Delyssa, occasionally reaching out to steady the acolyte as she stumbled over loose rock or tripped over a hard root sticking out of the ground.

There were no signs of any other creatures around the hills, though Brynwa pointed out rabbit tracks as they crossed the flat, sandy stretch between the two hills. After a quick conference, it was decided that they would climb straight up the other hill, so that if anything lurked on the opposite side, they would approach it from above.

They picked their way between boulders embedded in the earth as they climbed, taking care to avoid stepping where loose gravel would spill out from underfoot and give away their ascent to anything nearby. Cenhera, lightest and most agile of the group, quickly pulled ahead, covering ground in leaps and somersaults. The tunling disappeared over a tall rock, only to poke her head over after a moment and frantically gesture for them to follow.

"I don't spot anything moving down there," she hissed. "But you should all get up here to see this."

They abandoned their stealthy approach and climbed after Cenhera. At one point, Brynwa scrambled upwards on all fours, shifting stones and earth beneath her pawing.

They crested the peak of the hill, looking downwards over a steep drop on the western face. It took a moment for Delyssa to register what she was looking at.

"Huh," said Brynwa, straightening up beside her.

The entire face of the hillside below them was scarred. Boulders and stones were clearly carved away, smooth swathes simply missing from their forms.

Delyssa squinted and tilted her head. The missing portions of the hill, where the earth was simply displaced, followed crisscrossing paths, as if everything in a line had disintegrated. Curiously, where the furrows sank into the ground, half-pipe trenches more than two arms' spans across, roots of trees and brush protruded out uninterrupted. Whatever ate through the stone left the plant matter entirely intact.

"That doesn't bode well," Cenhera said.

"What sort of creature can do that?" Delyssa asked.

"Nothing good." Vael said firmly. They began their descent.

As the scout had promised, it was a short time before they found the tunnel leading into the heart of the hill. The hole was nestled between two boulders, one of which was missing its top third. It was wide enough in diameter that Delyssa could walk upright, though Vael and Brynwa would have to stoop. The fighter continued down a little way past the hole to investigate where the converging lines of missing earth were at their densest.

Cenhera and Vael crouched in the entrance of the tunnel. "No markings along the wall," the tunling observed. "Stone's smooth as if it eroded away."

"What about this?" Vael said, trailing his hand along the floor of the tunnel. Delyssa peered over his shoulder. Long scratches, hatching over one another, disappeared down into the darkness. Claw marks, each set wider across than her head.

"Come and look at this," Brynwa called up to them. They turned away from the tunnel and joined the fighter, who was standing on a wide patch of flat, dark dirt. Brynwa scuffed the dirt with her boot, revealing a lighter substance beneath it that matched the rest of the terrain.

"Was the top layer burned?" Delyssa asked.

Brynwa shook her head. "It's dried blood, I think."

Delyssa looked around. The dark patch on the ground was huge. "Blood from what? From the monster we're looking for?"

"I doubt it," said Vael. "If it was, where are its bones?"

"If it had any," said Cenhera. "We don't know what kind of monster it is."

"Even if it was," Vael said, "our mission is still to clear the rest of the ruins. This just means we should be cautious."

"As if that has stopped anything before," Brynwa grumbled.

"Right, let's not dally about," said Cenhera. "Here's what I think. We march in, me about fifty big-paces in front. The rest of you come in after me — Vael in front, Delyssa in the middle holding the torches, and Bryn coming up behind. If we get to an intersection, I'll wait for you. If I see anything, I'll come back and get you, and if anything comes up behind you, give a shout and I'll come back. Sounds good?"

"Works for me," said Brynwa.

"Agreed," said Vael.

There was a beat of silence before Delyssa realized that they were waiting for her. "Er, yes. That sounds smart to me," she said. Cenhera shrugged.

They arranged themselves by the tunnel entrance. Brynwa kept her greatsword strapped to her back and carried unsheathed a smaller broadsword. Vael planted his sword in the ground and focused on tightening the shield straps around his forearm. Delyssa stood uncertainly between the two, her staff held in the crook of her arm as she rifled through her pack to remove the torches and strap them to the side.

Cenhera drew one of her daggers and slipped into the tunnel, quickly disappearing from sight, and Delyssa almost immediately lost track of the sound of her soft footsteps upon the stone.

Delyssa tucked the first torch between her knees and swung the pack over her shoulder. The clink of flint against steel seemed loud against the quiet dungeon before them. After the torch was lit, she held it aloft, up to the left so the burning drops of oil wouldn't fall on her hands.

Vael turned to her and Brynwa and nodded. Brynwa put a reassuring hand on Delyssa's shoulder. Together they stepped forwards into the darkness.

#

As the scout had described, it wasn't long before the smooth bore of the tunnel gave way to dark brickwork. The passage did not so much emerge as merge with the chamber, the slight downward incline of the tunnel dipping into the cobbled floor, the stone smoothly carved away like the rest of the rock. The claw marks on the tunnel floor, the grooves glinting in the torchlight, were visible in the chamber — the beast that presumably made the tunnel had continued on in its own exploration.

The walls extended on their left and right — on the party's right-hand side they could see the corner wall, disappearing into the darkness before them. Delyssa could just barely make out the opposite walls of the chamber at the edge of her torchlight. The dancing flicker of the torch she held seemed to deepen the shadows rather than dispel them.

The dry, heavy air weighed down on her, reminding her of the mausoleum in the Temple of Shevlana.

The chamber was far bigger than the cramped, claustrophobic passageways she had imagined. There were five pillars, rising up to meet the vaulted ceiling. They were arrayed in a three-by-two pattern, and where the sixth pillar should have been, the opposite corner from the tunnel they now exited from, there were great round blocks of stone scattered about the floor.

"The beast dissolved the bottom half of the pillar, and the rest of it came tumbling down," Vael conjectured as he took in the sight.

They fully entered the chamber, the only noise the crackle of torches and the step of boots against stone. On the far wall of the chamber there was a circular gap in the brick, an identical tunnel to the one they entered from, though this one was filled to nearly its ceiling with loose brick and rock that had collapsed in from above.

"Whatever this beast is, it's probably not intelligent enough to know about structural engineering," Brynwa said. "Hopefully it's made a cave-in over itself and got squashed. That would save us a lot of trouble."

"If it can eat through stone, why would it care if it caused a cave-in?" Vael said.

Delyssa stepped forward into the chamber, walking between the pillars. Along the sides of the room were brass rings, pounded into the stone at around twice her height. Beneath the rings were piles of cloth that had rotted away into little blackened clumps. Great tapestries once hung here, Delyssa decided.

"Let's take a closer look around," said Brynwa, lighting her own torch from Delyssa's flame.

"What about Cenhera?" Delyssa said.

"What about me?" Cenhera said from beside the acolyte, causing her to jump with a yelp that echoed around the chamber.

"I thought you were scouting ahead!" Delyssa said.

"I was, but the next few chambers are all clear as best as I can tell. Quiet as a, well, a tomb. There are two passageways on the north side of this chamber, but they fork together just a few paces down. The next room is a lot like this one, as I can tell. Vaulted ceiling, pillars, murals on the walls."

"Murals?"

Before Cenhera had time to answer, Vael called out from the other end of the chamber. "Delyssa, come see this."

The two walked over to the paladin. Between the two passageways that Cenhera mentioned there was a trapezoidal alcove built into stone. On the shelf of the alcove was a small figure, carved from the same stone as the rest of the chamber. It was of a woman, her face shrouded and flowing, intricately-carved garments. She lay reclined on the stone, propped up on one arm, the other in her lap, bare feet tucked behind her.

Delyssa peered close at the figure, taking in all the details.

"She seems familiar, but I don't know who this figure is," she admitted.

"Look up, there's text carved at the top of the alcove," said Vael. He tenderly grabbed Delyssa's hand and eased her torch up towards the ceiling. She shivered at his touch, then focused on the area he pointed out. There were three lines of text, each one in a different script. The first she recognized, the same elder language she was taught at the Temple, the kind used by dozens of religions.

"'Saint Mesembre,'" she read. "I don't know the other languages — different forms of elder speech, I expect. But I think they say the same thing."

"Who was Saint Mesembre?" asked Brynwa.

"I've never heard that name before," said Delyssa.

"Me neither," Vael said.

They spent a little more time in the chamber. Cenhera prodded at stone tiles and bricks in search of any secret passageways and Brynwa ineffectually dug at the rubble blocking the other tunnel. Vael examined the piles of molded tapestries, poking through with his sword tip. Delyssa just watched the adventurers, trying to get a sense for how to behave in a dungeon. So far, it seemed like the strategy was to examine the minutia of a room while ignoring the obvious egresses.

Eventually, they reconvened in the center of the chamber.

"I think we should dig up that rubble and head down that tunnel," said Brynwa. "We're here to fight that beast and we know that it came through here."

"I don't feel good about going straight into the lair," Cenhera said.

"And we're supposed to clear the rest of the ruin anyway," Vael pointed out. "My vote is to explore the rest of the chambers before venturing into the tunnels."

"I agree," said Delyssa, both relieved to avoid another tied-vote situation and to delay entering the uncannily-built tunnels that contained the beast.

Brynwa grumbled but fell in place behind Delyssa as they stepped back into their earlier formation. Cenhera padded before them, her tunling eyes adjusted to the darkness. Like she said, the two passageways that exited the chamber converged just a few paces down, a fork of unknown purpose.

The next chamber was a little slimmer in width than the first one, though longer and with rounded corners between the walls. As Cenhera described, the walls were lined with carved murals, sets of reliefs built into the brick.

Unlike the mulched tapestries, the tableau around them was well-preserved. As her torchlight passed over the delicate carvings, the dancing light seemed to cause motion among the small figures. Delyssa peered close to the nearest one: crowds of figures, some armored, while others were dressed plainly or were simply naked, stood against ranks of soldiers, their formation bristling with lowered spears. At the head of the former group was the figure from the previous room, Mesembre, who held out her hand toward the army. Long lines depicting some sort of energy radiated out from Mesembre's outstretched hand.

Delyssa continued her walk along the left side of the chamber. It seemed she was moving in reverse-chronological order of the reliefs lining the walls: the next set showed what she intuited to be a previous scene, Mesembre preaching to the same crowd that was following her in the first tableau. She leaned in. The details on the carving were immaculate. She could make out fine engravings on the smallest parts of the figures — their jewelry, amulets, the markings on their shields or armor. She blinked. "Huh."

Brynwa strode up next to her, carrying another lit torch. "Anything important?"

"I'm not sure about important, just... strange. Look, all of these figures wear holy symbols of different gods. There's Muridiel's fern, the bolt of Amnastra, Nayak's rune... Most of our pantheon is represented here, plus some old ones I don't recognize."

"Not Shevlana, though?"

"We don't have a holy symbol. Our bodies are sacred."

"That's right. Odd though, isn't it? It looks like all those priests are following this other woman."

"Exactly. It's not unprecedented for different clerics to work together — campaigners are a good example of this. But to have this many, with this much variety. I can't imagine what their cause was. It must have been historic, but then why have I never heard of this?"

"Good questions," said Vael, stepping up alongside them. "I have one of my own: where is Cenhera?" Delyssa and the fighter turned and looked around the chamber. The tunling was nowhere to be seen.

"I'm going to look down the passageway for her," said the paladin. "Delyssa, why don't you take a look at some of the other carvings about this chamber? Maybe there's a clue to what this dungeon is."

"I'll stay here and keep the healer safe," said Brynwa.

"Right," Vael said slowly. "Just make sure you do not get distracted."

"Does the paladin refer to ribaldry?" Brynwa said, affecting a tone of affront. "Please, Sir Vael. We're professionals."

Vael rolled his eyes and turned away towards the dark passageway that led deeper into the dungeon. "I'm just looking into the next chamber. I'll be right back."

"You don't actually want to do anything right now, do you?" Delyssa asked the fighter.

Brynwa winked. "Please, babe. You both think so little of me. Let's go check out some of those other carving." Delyssa chirped as the fighter playfully smacked her ass as they crossed the chamber to the final set of carvings.

It was a strange scene. The army that opposed the group of clerics in the earlier carving was now facing outward, in a defensive ring around the group. Surrounding them was a vast field of enemy soldiers, carrying long pikes in their thousands. They were armored and faceless, and interspersed among them were hulking, inhuman figures. Bound demons and other such monsters, she thought.

"I don't see Mesembre in this scene," she said to Brynwa. The center of the defenders' ring, where she expected to see the mysterious saint, was instead filled with wounded men and women and their accompanying healers.

"Maybe something happened to her in a previous panel," Brynwa offered. "Why don't you try to find her in that one? I'll keep looking for her here." Delyssa shrugged her pack off her shoulders and set it down next to a pillar.

"I'll check. I'm curious what became of this woman," she said.

She leaned in to examine the penultimate relief. There was Saint Mesembre, standing between the forces about to do battle. A lone soldier of the opposing side, broken from his rank, knelt a distance from her, drawing a bow pointed directly at the woman. Delyssa looked closer at the carving — Saint Mesembre was shown disrobing, with two attendants holding her robes. Beneath them, she wore strange metal garb.

The realization dawned on her. "Brynwa, it's her!" Delyssa said to her companion.

"Who?"

"The woman I saw in my vision! That was Saint Mesembre!"

Brynwa frowned. "Are you sure? Let me see." She began to walk over to the acolyte.

The wall between them suddenly opened, a great circle of black, empty space as the stone simply melted away. Out from the depths of the new passage roiled a jet of hot, hazy air that distorted the space between the two adventurers. Delyssa shouted in surprise and scrambled backwards, while Brynwa backstepped and drew her sword in a single motion. There was a beat where the room was still and silent, before there was the scrabble of claws against naked stone and an explosion of movement as the beast burst out of the tunnel and lunged into the room.

It was, she could see in the flickering gloom of the torchlight, over the size of a man, a four-legged lizard-like creature. Each limb was lean and muscular, and ended in a sickening array of sharp claws that scraped against the stone floor. A long, barbed tail lashed out behind it and it swung its huge head towards the two.