Tales of Ruuin - Homecoming

Thump-thump-thump!

The walls were closing in on Echser as he moved ever deeper into the dark, slithering on his belly like some giant worm while pushing ahead the smoke bomb. His heart hammered in his chest; a continuous thump-thump-thump only surpassed by the blood roaring in his ears. It was the hardest thing Echser had ever to do in his life, every fiber of his being screaming at him to crawl back, to get out of here and forget the book. But if he did that, all those people would have died for nothing. Then he really would be a mass-murderer.

"Curse you, Craven," he muttered with more venom than he ever felt for another human being in his life. "The pox on your nethers!"

He inched forward, hardly able to hear anything over his labored breathing as he made his way over the glassy surface of the ghoul tunnel. Now and then, he gagged, tasting sick on his tongue. The foul air in the tunnel was miasmic. It was cold and moist, pregnant with a myriad of smells the alchemist dared not to think about but knew all too well: excrement, rotting meat, wet earth, and death.

"Keep calm... Keep calm..." muttered Echser as panic threatened to overwhelm him. In his flickering candle-flame, the walls seemed to press in on him. Slick and glossy, they made him think of the necrotic bowels of some vast organism that was slowly devouring him. He shook his head angrily. "Not helpful! Keep calm... Keep calm... By Science, keep calm!"

Sweat beaded his face, dripping from his nose, running into his eyes. He longed to wipe it away but dared not to let go of the candle. Its flickering flame was all that stood between him and a darkness so complete it seemed to go on forever, even though the horror of what the flame illuminated gnawed on him. Shirt buttons, the odd silver or gold piece, torn necklaces, a ring here and there, and teeth – all worked into the glassy walls of the tunnel.

"Keep calm... Keep calm... Keep calm... "

Echser shuddered, fighting down nausea for the umpteenth time, wishing that he were blissfully oblivious as to how these things came to be here. The young fool that had discovered this tunnel had thought it to be a relic of the Forgotten Ages, perhaps a part of an old sewer. It was a sewer of sorts but none so old, for ghouls built tunnels from their bodily secretions, especially their feces. Mixed with soil, it created a compound that once hardened was as strong as concrete. The knick-knacks and teeth visible here and there were just – he swallowed hard – indigestible waste.

Echser suppressed a gag as he crawled past a glass eye of all things. It stared at him – all beady and baleful – and he had to fight the urge to ask, "Have you seen my book?"

He giggled. No, he could not ask that. That would be insane! After all, he and the eye had not even been properly introduced! He shook his head to get the crazy out and choked as bile rose to his throat. "Keep calm! Don't vomit, oh please don't vomit. Not here! Not now!"

Somehow, he managed to keep his last meal down. Somehow, he crawled onwards. How far was he in yet? Ten feet? Twenty? A hundred? He couldn't even turn around to see if the light from the tunnel opening was still there. Too little room – and he was too afraid of the darkness creeping up behind him. When the tunnel made a noticeable dip, sinking deeper into the earth, he almost started crying. Was there no end to this torment? How far did he still have to go on? Where was his book? Where the hell was it!?

He sniffed, lifting his head as far as he could. There!

Fifteen feet away, at what seemed to be another tunnel crossing, lay his priceless manuscript. It was also the perfect placement for his bomb, almost as if the damnable Lich hunter had known how far to throw his precious volume. His joy was short-lived, though. He swallowed hard: fifteen feet deeper into the dark, deeper into the cold, wet earth.