Chapter 156: Sanctuary

  The water was cool as it soaked my boots, then my socks, and my linen pants, w its my body. I was waist-deep, and a cloud of filth reading out from me, fouling the clear water. “Maveith, e on in! The water is fine!” Maveith stood on the shore, uain. “We saw the cockatrice bathing. There is nothing dangerous ier.”

  The tall goliath looked around the room, turning his head slowly. “I think I will harvest the cockatrices first. That way, I do not have to bathe twice. I will also retrieve my arrows.”

  I rolled my eyes at Maveith. “Well, I saw some wild onion stems among the tall grass. You dig them up as well.”

  Maveith’s deep voice sounded hurt that I thought he could not spot the dark green stems of the onions. “I saw them too, Eryk. There looks to be some garlic as well. Did you see the garlic?” He challenged someyfully.

  “No. Is there garlic too? If you start pulling up the root vegetables, see if you capture some of the worms the cockatrices were eating. I want to see if I use the collector on them.” Maveith looked doubtful at that statement.

  I started removing my armor, one piece at a time, ing it before tossing it into the grass to dry. Maveith focused on the cockatrices. I would throw him in if he tried not to bathe. We both smelled so foul that we no longer noticed how bad it was.

  After my armor was off and ed to the best of my ability, I worked on my clothes,soaking and rinsing them repeatedly until they no longer produced clouds ier. The dirty water quickly settled into the sandy bottom, filtering downward. Eventually, I was pletely naked, so I produced my shaving kit to retrieve the small bar of soap inside. I theurhe rest of the kit. I scrubbed out every crad crevice of dirt, dried blood, and sap. I used the entire bar of soap, but it was worth it. I moved uhe waterfall and began to rinse my hair and scrub my face. I remained uhe casg water until my skin uckered, pale, and perfectly .

  I had spent two hours bathing, and Maveith worked the eime. I might have felt guilty if I had not asked him to join me a dozen times while he worked. I pulled out underclothes from my ste and dressed. I only had one spare pair of legion boots in my space, and I was wearing them now. I no longer felt like a soldier on an infinite campaign. I felt almost human, if I was not trapped deep inside a duhat was trying to kill me.

  Maveith had a tarp in the grass with a stack of bird meat and ans. There ile of small wild onions and a sed pile of some pu bulbous wild garlic. The onions and garlic would give our meals a lot of fvor iure. After bathing for the first time in weeks, I was relut to dig them up. “Eryk, if you cook, I will bathe. We have about eight hours before we should leave.”

  I nodded and was gd the goliath was trag our time as well. The st thiher of us wanted was to be caught bathing when the cockatrices respawned. Maveith finally stripped aered the water to wash himself and his gear.

  I focused on cooking. I heated some bear fat in Maveith’s cast iron pan. I cut up several onions and two garlic cloves and cooked them. One of the cockatrice breasts was cut into thin strips, and I ground up some pepper. I seasoned each side with a little salt and pepper, then seared both sides of the bird meat, cooking it through. I folded the crispy meat like a tad filled it with onions sautéed and garlic.

  I munched on the first one, enjoying the texture and fvors. As I prepared the sed, I called Maveith over. He came out of the water to get his cockatrice taaked. “Damn, Maveith, watch where you swing that thing!” He ignored me, and the taco was gone in two bites.

  “That was tasty. I get six more?” His deep voice asked eagerly. His statement brought baightmares of w at a fast-food restaurant in high school, trying to keep up during the weekend lunch rush because half the staff called out sick.

  “Keep washing. And no service without shoes, shorts, and a shirt!” I told the goliath. He was fused by the sudden requirements but waded bato the water. “I will let you know when it is ready.”

  I made two more for myself before preparing six for Maveith. “ I cook the greens from the onions and garlic?” I asked Maveith, who was dressing.

  Maveith sidered. “Onion greens are bitter, but garlic greens taste like their bulbs, and I have used them before in my cooking.” I chopped up the garlic stems and added them to the round of stir-fry. Maveith ate nine of the tacos before he was finally full and topped them with a cup of his apple-berry jam for dessert. I had a cup of savory-sweet jam myself.

  “After we harvest as muion and garlic as possible, we will explore the passage,” I said. There assage directly opposite the one where we had ehe massive domed room.

  “I am hoping we never have to fight these birds again.” He ched into his st taco. “But they are tasty.” Personally, I thought they tasted closer to turkey than chi, but all the fvor came from the bear fat, onions, and garlic. We had only used up one of the massive breasts, too, so we had a lot of meat remaining.

  As I pulled garlid onions from the ground, I searched for the elusive worms. I even tried pg the collector on the ground in a few spots, hoping the worms were close to the surface to pull their essence. I had no luck.

  Maveith found the first worm when he pulled up the waist-high grass to ihe roots. Apparently, they ed in the roots. I felt cheated when the finger-sized worm released tiny wisps of blue smoke but did not produ essence. I tried it on multiple worms, but it never produced an essence. So much for the collector w on every creature in a dungeon.

  We washed our hands, and I stored the harvest. We filled our water from the falls and finally left the idylli. The corridor was the same as elsewhere, but the room fifty feet down the corridor was not. It was a square chamber, twenty feet on each side. A stone shelf was on the left and right walls, three feet deep. Across from us was the most fusing sight:. a wide stairway going up. We did er the room as we both po.

  “There is writing on the wall, Eryk,” Maveith said, pointing. It was hard to see, as it looked to have faded with time, but there was elven script above one of the recessed shelves.

  “I think this is a safe room, and those are sleeping alcoves. Otherwise, the dungeon would have erased the writing on the wall.” I stepped into the room, trusting my instincts. Nothing leaped out to attack me, and I cautiously approached the writing. It was in elven script.

  “It is a safe room,” I said to the relieved Maveith, who joined me. “It is going to take me a little while to decipher this. Do you want the dreamscape amulet?”

  “I would be grateful for it, yes,” his deep voitoned.

  While Maveith made himself fortable iher alcove with the dreamscape amulet, I trahe a writing. Maveith soon started sleeping deeply, and I slowly figured things out.

  The script indicated our location: we. were ohird level of the byrinth in a special series of rooms. It warned of the cockatrices, fire bear, and shapeshifters. The dark room was the real prize in the er of this dungeon, as it tained silver ore with trace amounts of mithril. Apparently, there were better pces to mihril, as this was not a popur path due to the cockatrices and greater doppelgangers guarding it.

  There was no refereo what was at the top of the stairs. My curiosity got the better of me. I would climb the stairs and check. Maybe there was another safe room at the top. The stairs corkscrewed as I climbed, and I ted the steps. It seemed to go on forever, and I worried I might not be back before Maveith woke.

  I assumed I was heading toward the sed yer of the byrinth aing closer to the others from the pany. Perhaps the rooms on the sed yer would not be as dangerous. I reached the top of the stairs and did not like what I found: an. oval chamber with a gss floor where giant eels swam underh. No, it was not gss; it was ice. This room was a skating rink. There were two exits, though. The question was whether the eels were the monsters or if they were what the guardian ate.

  I studied the room, but the only activity seemed to be uhe ice. I was about to leave when movement on the ceiling caught my eye. The body of something had blended in nearly perfectly. The creature gave up hiding and dropped to the ice as I focused on it. Six thick legs, ending in terrible cws, scratched the gss-like ice, marring the surfad throwing ks. The dark blue lizard-like creature was rger than a horse and growled at me, clearly unhappy with my presence.

  It paced on the ice, its cws ripping up ks as it went. I watched in horrific fasation, as if I were at a zoo and perfectly safe oher side of the bars.

  After twenty minutes of prang for me, the muscur creature burrowed into the i seds. I could see it uhe ice hunting the rge eels. It was not long before it scored a victory and burst out of the ice at a different spot from where it had ehe ice appeared to be about six ihick from the ks that had been washed across the rink. I was curious about how the chamber was reset to make the surface of the ice smooth, but I o get baaveith. If only one creature existed in this chamber, then it should not be too difficult.

  Maveith was still sleeping when I returned dowwo hundred and six steps to the safe room. When Maveith woke, we o make a big decision. Would we leave this part of the dungeon with the familiar monsters and rooms, or would we go to the sed yer and explore unknown threats while attempting to find the others?

  ? Chted 2024 by AlwaysRollsAOne

  No Permission is given to transte, copy, repost or alter to an audio format of this inal work of fi. If you are reading this on a site that is not my Patreon, RoyalRoad., or Scribblehub., it has been stolen without my permission and viotes DMCA. Remember, this work is the result of my creative effort and is protected by cht w. Removal or altering of this notification is an aowledgment you are aware you are in viotion of DMCA.