The Legend of Aireta -- Ascending Shades

Part I: Contract Chapter 2: Mageia

Flashes of the beasts was all Kinos had before reaching them. Polupos had been right: the speldets had six legs, all which impaled the mageia-filled cliff to hold them up, and two scythe-like appendages further along its stretched, insectoid body. They were not, however, the size of three normal men, but instead were akin to three Rostacoses. All had dark brown layering that'd be too sturdy to pick through. But they weren't without weakness. Large, bulbous black-red eyes sat atop an elongated face.

Perfect.

The central speldet, the one Kinos dropped toward, spread its weaponed arms apart and opened a gaping jaw crammed with protruding pikes of teeth. Kinos kicked the wall, sending himself toward the center of the cavern. The air swooshed as the speldet's scythes slashed where Kinos would have been.

Moron. Kinos swung his hand-pick down, jamming it into the speldet's eye. Its bellow pitched up into a tenor and it reared its upper abdomen back. Kinos caught hold of the monster's lengthy neck, finding a groove along its carapace. He pulled down, but the weight of his fall did not pull the beast out of the wall.

Guess I got to jump and –

Kinos' eyes widened. The speldets on either side brought their arms back, poised to strike, while a thin streak descended into the darkness below. Kinos tugged his rope, which easily flung upward and displayed the clean slice separating Kinos from his anchor.

"Great." Kinos leaped from the speldet's back, sailing between the others' attacks. He reached the opposing wall and grabbed a jagged rock. Kinos' head fuzzed, but cleared almost instantly. "Now you owe Polupos more rope."

The two speldets struggled to remove their bladed arms from the center one's back. The impaled creature swayed to and fro, its neck lolling to the side and hitting the wall. Kinos' hand-pick was still lodged in the creature's right eye.

"Wonder if I can get that back," Kinos muttered, shifting his gaze around the cavern.

The hole he'd created, which led to this cavern, was about teen feet below him. Nilipe had gone to prep the carts. Kinos would need more tools and explosives if he wanted to deal with these creatures, but at least she was out of harm's way – not that she'd like that fact.

Kinos dropped. Air whipped from below as he neared the tunnel. He clamped onto the edge as he began to plunge past it and held himself steady. He heaved, practically vaulting himself into his cave, as the speldets' struggle grew and bellows grew louder. As Kinos stood, Nilipe – rope tied around her shoulder and elbow, hand-pick at her waist, and dragging a cart – rushed to him, panting.

"You jerk!" Nilipe said.

"I didn't do anything!" Kinos replied.

A whoosh plummeted from behind. The dead speldet's corpse, with two arm-length holes in its back and a pick in its eye, dropped until it was out of sight. Stone crunched from above on the other wall, though the sounds were getting closer. Nilipe gave Kinos a sideways glance.

"I was only having a bit of fun," Kinos said.

"Without me?" Nilipe asked.

"And now that you're here, that's remedied." Kinos stepped back, grabbing the cart, his eyes never leaving the hole from the tunnel. "How many skins did you bring?"

"Ten."

The speldets, walking down the side of the far cavern wall with its upper portion arched back, came into view. Kinos smirked. "That's more than enough."

The left speldet crouched while the right continued moving down. Kinos grabbed a disp oil skin as the left speldet leaped toward the hole. Kinos ducked, scraping the flint at the edge of the wick, then hurled the explosive. The speldet stuck its bladed arms into the floor of the tunnel, stretching its neck forward as the skin sailed over its head, the wick nearly depleted.