Wizz: Bound and Hallucinating

How did it get to this? thought Wizz. The thought came as a feeling, a dread that there was no escape, that he was bound and helpless. Wizz could tell he was not thinking right. He could see and hear but it was all muddled. Worse, there was something pressing on his chest making it impossible to breath. What just happened? They had climbed and climbed – to the top of Backgammon’s Peak. And now he was bound and hallucinating.

He recalled his shock when the armoured skeleton with glowing red eyes drove its sword into his gut. The shock was partly the pain, but more the sight of the tip of the sword disappearing into his belly. That was before. Before they climbed to the top. He had been investigating inside a short tower after finishing off that worthless goblin. The base of the tower was a single round room with shields and crossed arms hanging on the walls. A large desk and standing suit of armour led to the feeling that important decisions were once made in this room.

The armour had come alive as soon as Wizz’s foot had touched the floor. Red points of light appeared in the skull still sitting inside the closed helm. Wizz fled but was caught on the stairs by the skeleton’s sword. When he came around his fellow adventurers were there, looking concerned and relieved. They had overcome the skeleton warrior and found a cache of healing scrolls – one of which had saved his life. That was before. Before he was bound. Before he was here.

The pressure on his chest was unbearable. Wizz could hear the clash of weapons and the twang of a bow. Someone was shouting and suddenly the pressure released. Wizz’s head banged on the flagstones and he saw the thorned tail of a snake slither away from him. Lona and Patron sprinted through his field of vision and he heard the bow again. Wizz’s head lolled and he found himself looking Fixlla, lying on his back on the stairs below him. Fixlla’s hands and legs were making jerky movements.

Wizz woke to the sound of Karr praying over him. His mind was clearing and he remembered the thorny snake appearing as if from the stone of the bannister and striking him on the face. Wizz put his hands to his cheek and felt the puffy puncture wounds. Fixlla was sitting with his back against the broken bannister. He gave Wizz and knowing look. They had been lucky.

Atlas described how their bows had saved them. Another few seconds and Wizz would have been crushed by the constricting snake. Fixlla had also been poisoned by the snake’s bite and it had taken most of their healing potions and scrolls to counteract its effects. Atlas showed Wizz a large feather.

“That fucking Eagle is up here,” she said. “I’m gonna get that bastard.”

The round room looked like it was on a peak. The sky was visible through four sets of high windows, a set in each quarter. The domed stone ceiling was starting to crumble and the large double doors looked ready to collapse. The snake had made a nest on the flagstones behind the stairs; a low, wide mound of leaves, sticks, coins and other shiny objects. There were dozens of feathers, some as long as the Hobbit was tall. An exquisitely carved jade eagle, wrought into an amulet on a chain, was a stand-out from the nest-hoard.

After resting, with the light fading outside, Wizz sprung the single door. The hall-like room beyond had lost part of its timber roof where a wall had collapsed. A massive grub pulsated on the floor, filling the space. The puce-coloured maggot reared up, its drooling fleshy pink maw filled with jagged shark-like teeth and long hairy bristles reaching out, seeking anything close.

Wizz backed away and, with the others, loosed several volleys of arrows. Some sank deep into the puffy flesh of the maggot. The beast swung towards the doorway and released a gush of sticky spittle that covered the floor in front of Wizz.

Karr charged in, clobbering the worm around its mouth and making it turn back into the room. Patron slipped through the doorway and disappeared from sight. Arrows continued to sink deep into the worm without apparent effect. Wizz snuck closer to the doorway. The worm was trying to engulf Karr who was struggling to dodge the repeated thrusts. There was something else. Something climbing over the broken down wall. A giant black beetle. It was twice as tall at the Hobbit with a jet black carapace and long jagged mandibles.

The beetle scuttled down the broken wall and clambered over the worm to get to Karr and Patron. Fixlla and Lona pushed through the door with sword and spear. Seeing an opportunity Wizz slipped into the room and skirted the melee, coming in behind the beetle. Wizz could only see the worm and the back of the beetle. Suddenly the worm reared and Wizz saw Karr’s legs protruding from its mouth. The beast’s fleshy mouth undulating, pulling him deeper in. Wizz could hear the others shouting and beetle’s mandibles shearing against each other like giant scissors.

Wizz crept behind and under the beetle’s body. From here the soft abdomen was unprotected. He stuck his long thin blade deep into the beetle’s gut and slashed a long gash, spilling its insides across the back of the worm and onto the floor. The beetle reared and fell backwards and at the same time Lona and Fixlla cut deep into the worm. The worm writhed and Lona sliced it open with her spear. Fixlla dragged Karr from the mass of heaving blubber and cleared his mouth and nose of worm-mucus. The beetle dragged its ruined back end to the edge of the room. It struggled, lying on its side with legs twitching and mandibles slicing, for some time.

Wizz looked for Patron, who appeared from the back of the room. Karr lay slumped against the wall, Lona kneeling, talking to him. Atlas joined them, shaking her head at the recklessness of it all. She still held an eagle’s feather. Wizz knew what was on her mind. It was getting dark out.