I’d gotten into such a rhythm with the winch that I didn’t notice when we bottomed out, and the lift bounced on the spot as I tried to hyper extend the chain. The force sent a shock-wave through my arms and jolted me out of my trance.

  I went over to the brake and gave it gentle play until the lift had raised again three or so feet. Then I leapt off with our packs to the ground and crawled over to the edge of the pit.

  Lift

  A pitch black square filled the hole two feet below the ledge.

  “How is it black?” asked Attar. He lowered himself carefully down next to me, less cavalier next to the giant hole, “And why? I thought your constructs were invisible.”

  “I can record whatever properties of the object I wish. I also recorded the lift’s ability to block light. I didn’t take its colour so we wouldn’t confuse it for real wood, but I didn’t fancy stepping down onto an invisible platform above an endless pit.”

  “Will the lift last long enough?”

  “It’s 100 feet to the fifth floor. Three minutes. There was a pit which might have been fifty feet or more next to the bottom of the well on the fifth floor, which would be another two minutes. We’ll descend for twenty or so minutes and see how we do.”

  I lowered myself down onto the platform first and confirmed it was solid, and then was followed by Attar a moment later.

  I sent our lift down into the pit with a thought. It was smooth enough that I could barely feel it move, slow enough that I had the feeling of sinking rather than descending. As the predicted 3 minutes passed, the shaft opened into a “small” warm chamber. The wall to my right—whatever that direction was, I had gotten turned around with the black walls and black floor—held a fireplace, burning merrily. Next to the fire lay an iron helmet with its top stove in.

  The room was essentially a ring around the shaft, which dropped straight through its centre. Two exits, one door, one portcullis led out of the room. There was no sign of inhabitation, save for the fire burning two or three weeks after the dungeon had been abandoned by the warlocks. More telling, I couldn’t sense the slightest magical sustenance to the fire or its fuel. Someone had built this fire in the past day.

  It was just as well, we were moving slow enough that our approach would be noticed from below before we were aware or able to react.

  I allowed the lift to continue its journey downward, until the floor was a ledge, and then a wall far above our heads.

  Three more minutes passed in silence. Then the shaft opened outward again and ten seconds later the lift touched down on solid ground.

  We’d already both crouched down to be better prepared for our landing, but my ring had also already revealed the inconvenience of the room to me. The ceiling was five feet tall at best, and half of it was taken up with a sort of two foot loft, which had a rope leading up to it.

  Whatever tiny creatures or children inhabited the room or had inhabited the room were not here at the moment. It could be that they’d constructed the place aeons ago and the warlocks had seen no reason to dismantle it.

  The room itself, once we’d lowered low enough for my light and eyes to see the rest, was a standard thirty by fifty foot rectangle.

  We’d arrived near an exit leading to a large round room. On the far side of the room was another empty exit, this one not by design, but by the warped wooden door lying 10 feet to its side. The opposite side of the room held two more exits, one barred with a door, the other a portcullis. The position was exposed, but I couldn’t see any immediate threats, even from the adjacent room.

  I turned my spellbook to a blank page and took up one of my makeup brushes.

  North Star

  Then I paced the length and width of the room we were in, and drew a rough sketch of the place, plus it’s... southern exit and the round room beyond.

  The north-west exit also led immediately to another room, and this one was also empty, however pieces of rotten meat were scattered about the room, making my survey of the third room much quicker.

  The rotten meat room’s northern exit was also an empty archway, and here was perhaps the source of the rotten meat. Four rotten corpses, escaped prisoners by their rags, lay in the hallway just beyond.

  The round room to the south was lit by a sickly glow, one which set off alarm bells in my mind. I didn’t know what it was, but I intuited, that no good would come from bathing in that light.

  I had a rough idea of the room and its roundness was certainly distinct. That, combined with the other two rooms and the hallway should be enough for me to—literally—get my bearings.

  ?Mental Map?

  The protection granted by the Corpse in the Sky faded the moment the spell was cast, meaning it had been immediately worth it. The spell was too valuable to lose, and too annoying to recreate.

  Ten minutes of studying my magical map was enough to pinpoint our location. Then I added my observations to the mental map to remind myself of the deadly light should I approach from a different direction, and the location of our exit. From there, I scoured the map for the stairs leading both down and up.

  There was no apparent path to the stair leading up, but enough connecting rooms and corridors to make me suspect a secret door somewhere. The stairs down didn’t even have a connecting hallway, but I suspected the same. In both cases, my Tunnel spells would provide if our observation failed.

  I jotted down a few notes in my spellbook: Down: Middle rotten wall opposite entrance, left, straight, straight, right, straight straight, right wall. Up: Top right opposite glow, straight, straight, through right wall at corner, left, right.

  After a moment’s thought I added Flr 6: to the beginning of my instructions.

  While we explored, down would be more valuable than up, as we could always take the lift until we had Brace’s crew with us. Even then, I could lower us all down if necessary, but moving back and forth would be slow.

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  “It’s going to be slow going. I need more and better tunnelling spells, and a second lift spell wouldn’t go amiss. Protecting the map is also going to take an entire inscription.”

  “Not south first, I hope? The light bodes ill.”

  “I thought so too. Though I think the light may be the ill. We’ll head through the far more pleasant room full of rotting flesh.”

  ***

  Tunnel IIII

  I sent the spell to work and added the location to my mental map while we retreated back to the original room.

  We couldn’t go in all the way, as I needed to tear down the door opposite the flesh-room first, and we wanted cover from any possible pendulums or lightning bolts.

  Scorch, Sword, Scintillation II

  The door flew open with a single stroke. Sure enough, something slammed my sword towards the ground as a thunderclap echoed around the wall we had ducked behind. The smell of lightning briefly replaced the stench of rotting flesh.

  The now open (and slightly scorched) door led to a hallway which immediately branched both straight ahead and to our left. My instructions to myself, as well as my still recallable map, told me to go straight ahead past both this first left, and another about a hundred feet down the hallway.

  I walked fifty paces past the corner, before I realized my instructions meant the hall corner and not a room corner past the wall. I prepended the word “hall” to my instructions to avoid future confusion, then set my second set of spells to work on the correct wall after consulting my map.

  Tunnel, Tunnel II, Tunnel III

  I had to stagger the spells with my ring in order to start some within the rock so there was no wasted effort, but I did a job to be proud of in the end.

  We then returned to the first room in time to hear the bizarre clucking emerging from the rotten flesh room. It sounded nothing so like a rooster the size of a horse.

  If my ring didn’t tell me otherwise I could have sworn my blood froze in my veins. I’d never heard the creature before, but I well knew the warnings.

  I shut down my ring and snatched up Attar, running to the wall bordering the rotten meat room.

  Then I held a finger to his lips and whispered in his ear, “There is a cockatrice through there. The egg of a rooster hatched by a basilisk,” I felt his lips move and I pressed down further, “Yes I know it doesn’t make sense, but they are very real, and very deadly. All parts of them are poisonous, from their gaze to their smell. To touch one is to die. Any river they drink from is forever tainted. Or was. I’m not sure now that we lifted the warlock’s curse.

  “The point being, we cannot let it see us and we cannot approach it, yet we cannot let it stay alive. They are most common in the lands south of the Vineyard, so I’ve never had to deal with one. I’ll send my swords after it and hope for the best. Only a weasel is immune to its poison. Fruit withers and dies in its presence. Some say even a land as vibrant and green as the Delta may someday become a desert under their incursion.”

  I was rambling. I shouldn’t have taken out my nerves on one nearly a decade my junior. I removed my finger from his mouth and stopped talking.

  “What if your swords don’t kill it?”

  “I can defeat it. However, once I give the signal, you will need to retreat. You remember the way from the fourth floor?”

  “Of course.”

  “Good. I will lighten your step so that you may ascend the shaft.”

  Soldier’s Swords

  Magic Swords II

  Magic Swords III

  “The room to the left contains a cockatrice. Kill it.”

  I’d actually found my sentient swords and swords which could obey orders to be more trouble than they were worth. This was one occasion where that would no longer be true. I could only hope the swords themselves were immune to the creature’s poison.

  Of course, this being the sixth floor, and the dark weight of the Bleak Fort growing ever heavier as we descended, both my Magic Swords were cast in an unexpected manner. Instead of six blades from the two spells I summoned three, and the number of lights was halved as well. It would have to do. A quick check of the runes with my fingers revealed the intensity of the spells should have doubled. I could only hope. The lights did appear brighter.

  My swords moved for the kill.

  There was always the chance that I’d sent them after a giant chicken warped by the warlock’s magic than a cockatrice, but it was a risk I was willing to take. Given that my swords joined combat rather than hesitate, I assumed my guess was correct.

  Combat was joined with a loud crow of pain from the cockatrice, one which did not abate after several seconds had past. I’d managed to wound the creature but not kill it.

  A second cry followed a moment later, this one fainter. Then a third which sounded more like a whimper.

  I breathed a sigh of relief.

  “I think they killed it.”

  “How do we check?”

  I double checked the pixie’s amulet was firmly pressed against my chest, then hesitated.

  “Are you willing to check? If I die you will be stranded here. If I don’t die, it might be a product of my resilience, not the safety of the room, and you following me will kill you anyway. I don’t wish to ask it of you”

  Attar smiled softly at me, “I already told you, you need but ask.”

  He then made sure of his own amulet and crept to the door.

  “Your lights are illuminating the creature. I can gaze upon it without fear, though its eyes are currently hidden from view. There is a smell which grows as I near, it is wretched beyond even the rotten meat, yet my health does not feel threatened, nor does the amulet grow warm,” he was far enough away by now that only my superior hearing allowed me to follow his shouts, “I am going to try moving around to look into one of its eyes,” my calves clenched as I stopped myself from running after him. We’d need to know.

  There was a spell of silence from Attar. My heart clenched harder than my calves. Then his voice called again, louder this time, “The amulet works. It grew hot before I could approach. Either the beast is still somewhat alive, or its gaze is poisonous in death.”

  “Get out of there,” I called, “If it is alive, its gaze may move faster than the amulet can warn you.”

  Then, to my swords I called, “Destroy its eyes.”

  ***

  Five minutes later we were both standing by the corpse.

  “What a mess,” I said.

  “What drove it here?”

  “Perhaps it was injured? Or chasing some prey. It concerns me that the danger appears to be growing as we descend. I think only the weaker animals have been driven from the cavern depths. There would be more vegetation and animals to predate on outside the Fort.”

  “Then again, I can’t help but wonder: what drove it here? This creature appears to be no simple foe.”

  “It was attracted to the sound of digging, yet did not look for the prey causing the noise. Something was wrong with the creature. I doubt it was sound of mind.”

  “I used to raise chickens. They were pretty stupid.”

  I looked down at the woman’s face weeping bloody tears from torn eyelids set in the head of the rooster, “They are somewhat more than a chicken.”

  “Where does the human face play in to the whole thing? You said they were a cross between a basilisk and a rooster.”

  “I can only think of one possibility, and it is both too vile and too nonsensical to give it word.”

  “Then let us turn instead to the task of dragging this corpse from the room. Your tunnels will be a while yet, and I don’t fancy the creature putrefying in front of our egress.”