by Joe Solmo

Serius walked cautiously through the doorway hidden behind the throne that Vidden had sat on for untold centuries. He used the diversion of Drejnin revealing to the rest of the group his past to escape. Something was calling to him from this doorway. He could sense something, but it remained a vague notion, a tiny voice, so far. It was just an impulse more than anything else. The dontu didn’t understand why Drejnin felt like coming clean with what they learned about themselves was the right thing to do. Was it the guilt that made the dontu reluctant to tell them, or something else?

With barely a thought, he changed his eyes to see in the darkness that hung in the air like drapes over a window. The passageway that lead deeper into the graveyard had no ceiling and he could see the twinkling of the night’s stars above. One evil down, only six more to go, he thought, cheerfully. His loyalties had always been to Drejnin, but since his Lord had his change of heart, things had gotten confusing. It was a lot harder than it seemed to just give up on a way of life and do a complete about face; at least it felt that way to Serius.

The dontu wasn’t even sure he wanted to give up the life he had before coming to this world. He didn’t suffer from a moral dilemma like Drejnin did. He was perfectly happy living the life they had before. Was Drejnin his Lord, or Drey’or? Drejnin was only a prince, and an outcast one at that. Drey’or ruled that world. The dontu let out a sigh and continued down the passage still with so many questions weighing on his mind.

He arrived at an iron door, rusted with the onslaught of countless storms over the years. No gate barred this door like the last one and he reached out his hand and grasped the handle. “Well, here goes nothing,” he said and yanked the door, it swung open with ease and he almost fell over backwards from the force he put behind his pull. Through the doorway he could see a well-lit chamber with some furnishings inside, but no immediate threat. Cautiously, he entered the room.

Adorning the chamber was a large four poster bed, cushions lay about the floor haphazardly, as if discarded without a thought. From nowhere, but seemingly everywhere, quiet, soothing music flowed about the room on a gentle current of sound. Serius took another step into the room and closed the door behind him. “Hello,” he called out into the chamber.

Instantly he heard movement from the bed, the wisps of skin sliding on sheets. Try as he might he couldn’t see past the sheer curtains that hung around the bed. Quickly, his eyes scanned the rest of the chamber for threats, but he didn’t see any. There were curious little statues placed around the room, about a foot tall, in various shapes and sizes, he noticed.  Most of them looked like little soldiers in various battle stances. Some looked like commoners with arms raised in a defensive position. He fought the urge to punt one of them against the wall. He hated sculpture.

Was that a moan he heard coming from behind the curtains of the bed? He couldn’t tell. His eyes studied those curtains, looking for a clue as to what lies beyond, but to no avail. “Hello?” he called out again. This time he was sure he heard a moan. He took a few more steps, avoiding the toy statues on the floor. There! There was something moving behind the curtains, he was sure of it now. A vague long shape slid along the sheer fabric and disappeared just as quickly as it appeared.

“I am not in the mood for bullshit,” he said now standing directly in front of the curtain. He watched as the long object once again brushed against the fabric, then, finding a part in the curtains he watched as a long slender female leg slid from behind. “Well that’s more like it,” he said letting his guard down a little bit, as a smile crossed his face.

“Come in, lover,” came a sultry voice from behind the curtain. Just the sound of that voice got his blood pumping. He watched as the leg retracted slowly back behind the curtain, until all that was showing was the painted toes. His eyes took in the shape pressed up against the curtain, the feminine form was almost too good to be true. Serius reached out with his hand just as the last of the woman disappeared behind and he gripped the cloth in his hand, and started to pull it back with anticipation.

“What is your name?” he asked. That feeling that brought him here also told him there was danger near. As much as he wanted to he couldn’t shake the feeling.

“No names, no attachments,” the voice said with a playful giggle. Once again, the dontu felt an overbearing urge to pull the curtain back and climb on the bed.

“You drive a hard bargain,” he said shaking his head as if to clear his thoughts.

“Why does it hesitate?” the female voice asked?

“It?” Serius responded.

“You are not human, you are something...sweeter,” she said, once again using that playful giggle to entice him.

“Baby, I am the sweetest thing you will ever taste,” he said taking a deep breath and pulled the curtain back.

Together we searched the room for another exit, but couldn’t find one. No one could remember seeing Serius leave through the gated door, but it was the only way. I had asked Skrat to locate him on his magical map, but it was like the dontu had vanished. We made our way back out to the passage, now devoid of creepy vengeful spirits, and went back past the entrance presumably to the next chamber. Maybe the shape shifting bastard was waiting for us there, I thought. 

We arrived at a turn in the passage just past the original entrance and u could tell when we entered the part that belonged to the next evil. The whole atmosphere seemed to change as we turned that corner and that’s when we saw the monstrosities. They were human, or at least were at one time. There wasn’t a single full being there. Some were missing arms, some legs, some had their eyes missing. More than one of them wore no clothes and they were missing more disturbing parts, let me tell you.

Sword drawn, Drejnin advanced into the hall. Once we crossed whatever boundary they deemed theirs, all hell broke loose and it was swing, swing, stab time. Now, no longer having to hide behind his faked amnesia, Drejnin let loose with an unbridled fury at the poor people in his path I have never seen before. Swinging his dwarf forged sword in one hand and casting spells from the other he cleaved a path through the parts of people. The rest of watched in awe for the first few seconds, then followed the Dreymorian.

I hacked at a few groping arms. They made the strangest noises, I realized they had their mouths sown shut, at least the ones that still held lips did. They didn’t move very fast, half of them missing limbs; we soon outpaced them and reached the door to the next area. What vile thing lies behind that door?

Putting his shoulder into the door as we approached, Drejnin forced his way through and we followed the large man. Jarris watched the rear and closed the door behind us as we entered the chamber. I opened the book and asked the young mage what next.

I got an answer, but not from Skrat. The rest of the group had stood still as I broke out the book and now I knew why, they were in shock at the thing that stood on the opposite side of the room. If I had to describe it I don’t think I could do it justice.

It was roughly sack-shaped and fleshy. Human at one time? It’s possible. It had hair on top of what I suspected was its head. The rest of the features changed every few seconds. Lips, eyes, ears, all parts seemed to rise to the surface of its skin and then sink back down inside after a few seconds. It was almost as if someone stirred a bowl of soup and you watched the noodles rise and sink again into the dark broth.

A pair of lips appeared roughly where it seemed like they should go. “Who is this? Who has come to play? Look at them all. Such pretty, pretty parts,” a female voice said and the flesh sack began to grow mismatched legs. It took an uncertain wobbly step towards the group.

“What the fuck is that thing?” I asked whoever had the answer.

“Shiny hair, we must have,” the creature said and moved towards Drejnin, who pointed the tip of his blade at the bag of ugly.

“Back, I command. Do not approach me or I shall destroy you,” he said in his booming baritone voice sounding pretty damn official.

“It’s voice,” it whispered as another pair of lips rose to the surface. “We can have it? Yes, yes, we can,” it said in a different voice and took another step closer.

“Marsh, did you guys make it into the other chamber yet? I’m having a hard time finding you guys on the map,” Skrat’s voice came from the book.

“Yah we are here and got some kind of fleshy shape-shifting jelly thing trying to eat Drejnin’s voice,” I said and turned the book so that Skrat could see what I was talking about. Like I said my description didn’t do it justice.

“Holy shit,” was his reply. Kids today, no originality…

Drejnin fired off a spell at the thing, blue lightning flinging from his fingertips and into the blubbery face. It seemed to have no effect on it. It continued on its mismatched legs towards the Dreymorian. Something told me opening the door wasn’t going to help this time, damn it, now I was out of ideas.

Zeeg placed his shield between Drejnin and the flesh sack and inched forward saying the words that made his shield’s power active. Moose circled to the left of the creature slowly, trying to avoid its attention to flank.

 Sreg fired arrows into its flesh, they sunk in halfway, but to little affect. Dead-Eye began to load his crossbow and I moved back towards the door. Moose and Weebly attacked with their weapons after having successfully flanked the thing. It seemed that it was transfixed on Drejnin.

“Its eyes, we must have,” it said disturbingly in yet another voice.

“I think it’s in love with you, Drejnin,” I said.

“Do you blame it?” the snarky bastard said with a grin and stabbed at the creature over the top of Zeeg’s shield. The flesh creature seemed to slide back to avoid the Dreymorian’s swing, but backed into Moose and Weebly’s reach. The dwarfs axe cleaved into the side of the thing, and a part of it fell off onto the floor, wet and twitching.

Moose landed a solid strike with his warhammer, crushing the top of the thing down into its self. When he tried to retract the hammer he found it stuck, and tugged as hard as he could, but he couldn’t budge the thing. “Ut oh,” he said.

“Marsh, listen to me. This was once a human woman named Sharli Dunher. She had her husband killed so that she could marry a more attractive man. In her life she spent her time being jealous of other people’s physical attributes. She began to have her soldiers capture those that had parts she thought better than her own. Once her dungeons were full she began to experiment on them, cutting the parts off she wanted and eating them. Hoping it would somehow enhance her own body by doing so. This creature you see in front of you is the undead result of years of cannibalism and envy. She must be stopped before she consumes the parts of you guys she likes,” the young mage said.

“It seemed magic had no effect on the bitch,” I said. “Also, blunt weapons get stuck in her fleshiness.”

“Use edged weapons, I will see what else I can find out,” he said. I repeated what he had told me to the rest of the group as Zeeg slammed his shield into her face. Somehow it didn’t stick like his brother’s warhammer had. Weebly screamed and I looked in his direction. He was busy fighting the little bit of the creature that he had cut off. It was standing on fingers and swinging at him with what looked like tentacles.

“Um, edged weapons might not be a good idea either,” the dwarf said dodging a tentacle that aimed for his head.

“What the hell is left?” I asked.

No one seemed to have an answer so we continued fighting the best we could, hoping the mage could give us something to work with soon. Moose had lost his boot, trying to get leverage to pull his warhammer free, so now he was out a weapon and a shoe. His brother Sreg had switched to magical arrows, since the real arrows only sunk harmlessly into the flesh blob.

“Myder, give me your pack,” Hall said setting his weapon down and grabbing the leather backpack on his apprentice. He began digging inside the bag hectically as Zeeg’s shield took a beating from the fleshy tentacles that had fingers and toes stretch out of it occasionally.

“Skrat, what do you have for us?” I asked the book, but the mage didn’t respond, he must still be looking up information.

“Let me through,” Hall said pushing past Drejnin gripping something in his hand. When a tentacle swung above Zeeg’s shield Hall reached out with whatever he had and the thing shrieked, retracting its appendage.

“What the hell is that?” I asked, curious.

“Common salt,” the medic said with a smirk. “It looked like a giant slug to me.”

“It burns! The blob of humanity yelled out and recoiled away from us, showing uncertainty for the first time.

“How much of that shit do we have? I asked Hall.

“About a pound, but it is in a brick, I just shaved a little off to throw. We need to break it up smaller, like into dust,” he said. During the chaos somehow, Moose had got his Warhammer clear and approached us with a smile. “I got this,” he said and raised his weapon. Hall quickly dropped the brick of salt down on the ground and jumped away since the large brother was already beginning to swing.

The hammer crushed the salt and it sprayed into the air, landing on the bulbous woman-esque thing in front of us. I quickly grabbed a handful from the floor and flung it into Sharli’s face. The rest of the guys did the same, those copy cats, and we now had the thing cornered. With every handful we threw, the creature shrunk a little more. The small chunk of jelly bitch that Weebly was fighting was only a small dried out husk now, lifeless. I watched as the dwarf crushed the salt even smaller with his axe until the metal was covered in a fine powder. Then with a wicked yell he buried his axe into Sharli. The resulting scream made me fall to my knees, and I wasn’t the only one. I wondered what happened to the Dontu. Surely, he heard that scream and knew we needed help?

The rest of the group started to lace their weapons and salt, and the poor blob didn’t stand a chance. Within minutes there wasn‘t much left but a husk on the floor, and even that didn’t stop the boys until it was nothing more but a brown powder on the stone. With a harrumph, Moose grabbed his shoe and sat down to put it on. The rest of the guys congratulated each other with high fives and exaggerated stories of valor, typical of soldiers who were still running on adrenaline.

Once everyone calmed down we took in our surroundings. The stone chamber it’s self was pretty unremarkable, but it did have a few small furnishings. A small table lay in the corner we had backed the blob into before destroying her. Dead-Eye was already trying to open the locked drawer on it. Hall was trying to salvage what powdered salt didn’t touch the skin sack of Sharli Dunher. Remind me to go on a low salt diet for a while.

Inside the drawer was a large bone key about a foot long, but there was no door in this room. “Hey Skrat, what does this key go to?” I asked the book. “Skrat?” I asked after not getting an answer from the young mage.

“Sorry Marsh, I had to relieve myself. What was it you wanted?” the young mage asked.

“I was wondering what this giant bone key went to,” I said turning the book so he could see the key in Dead-Eye’s hand.

“Give me a minute,” he said and disappeared from view in the book. I tapped my foot impatiently waiting on him to return.

“Marsh, you still there?” Skrat said as he returned to the window in the book.

“I’m here kid,” I replied.

“Ask Drejnin if he can do a magical search, there should be a keyhole somewhere in the room that will open to the next area,” he said.

“Hey Drej. Did you hear the boy?” I asked walking up to the large man.

“Yes, give me a moment,” he said and closed his eyes. Slowly he raised his hands and turned while mumbling under his breath. Eventually his turning stopped and one finger pointed to the western wall. He snatched the key from Dead-Eye as he approached the wall and we all watched in wonder as part of the wall separated until there was enough room for the key to enter. Drejnin turned the key with a click and a door shaped section of the wall recessed in a few inches.

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