Jean Rabe - Downfall

Fetch started to say something, but the half-elf cut him off with snarl. He shrugged his small shoulders and decided keeping quiet was wiser.

"There's a door down here!" Rikali yelled. "But the damn thing's rusted shut."

Dhamon brought the torch down to her, Rig and Fetch following. There wasn't much left of the torch, a half an hour of firelight at best.

"It better lead outta here," Rikali continued to grumble, giving the door a good kick. "Better be a back door at the bottom of this mountain. Huh?" She put her ear to the door and listened, furrowing her brow in concentration. "I hear somethin'. Maybe the wind whistlin' through some trees. By my breath, that's a good sign." Then she was fumbling in her belt, pulling small metal picks from behind her jeweled buckle. "Prefer to use my fingers," she said more to herself than to Dhamon. "But my nails haven't grown back yet. Pigs on my luck. That light, put it down closer. Hey, not so close it burns me!"

Dhamon crouched next to her and watched in fascination as she moved the picks in and out of the rusted lock with a skill he wasn't close to mastering, turning them first one way and then the other, putting her ear to the lock, making clicking sounds with her tongue against her teeth as she finally left two picks in and retrieved a third.

"It's an old lock," she said to explain why it took so long. "Things are rusted inside. Don't want to move."

"Could just break it down," Rig suggested, his eyes on the waning torch.

"Barbarian," Rikali whispered. "No genius to kickin'. No skill and thinkin'." Louder, she said. "I'll have it in a minute, just hold on and… there!" With a self-satisfied nod of her head, she pulled the picks out and replaced them in her buckle and wriggled the latch, grinning triumphantly when she heard a soft clacking. She tugged on the door. "Pigs! Probably swelled too much for the frame with all the moisture down here," she decided, as she wrapped both hands around the latch, braced her feet, and pulled again. Dhamon tried to help, but she shouldered him away roughly. "I unlocked it, I'm gonna open it. Be the first one to see inside.You just step back and watch me."

Dhamon did just that, listening to Rig grumble that he could have had it open with a single kick and that she had better hurry because there wasn't much left of the torch. Fetch suggested they pull some of the wood planks out of the door, and he'd be happy to make another torch from them, but everyone ignored him.

"I know I can get it!" she hissed between her teeth. "Just a little more. See, it's comin'. Just a…"

It came open with a roar as water rushed into the stairwell, sweeping Rikali behind the door and pinning her against the wall. Dhamon turned and scrambled up the steps, holding the torch high and staying just beyond the water's reach. Fetch was dumbstruck, barely able to scream, "I can't swim," before the water surged over his head. Only the mariner managed to stay anchored. He braced himself and spread his arms across the stairwell, hands firmly against each wall and slamming his eyes shut. When the wave hit him, he kept from being swept up in it, and when the surge stopped, the water settled down around his thighs and he opened his eyes.

Rikali was sputtering and splashing, jammed between the door and the wall. Rig sloshed down the steps and threw his weight against the door, budging it just enough for the half-elf to slip out. She struggled against him for a moment, then relaxed and gulped in some air. The water came up to her shoulders.

"Suppose I should thank you," she managed.

The mariner felt claws against his back, and he instinctively thrust his hand to his waist for a dagger, stopping just as his fingers closed on the pommel and he realized the source. The kobold had climbed up and wrapped his scaly arms around Rig's neck, coughing up water and cursing in a language the mariner couldn't understand.

"Dhamon!" Rig called.

The faint light from above became brighter-but only a little-as Dhamon climbed down the stairs and joined them, holding high what was left of the torch. His face was impassive, as if their predicament didn't in the least bit concern him. His eyes hinted at other thoughts working furiously and they were fixed on the way ahead. A minute later he was past them, sloshing through the doorway and into the chamber beyond.

"What do you think you're doing?" Fetch hollered at him. "Where're you going?"

"Hey, you stinking kobold!" the mariner cut in. "If you're going to hitch a ride, don't scream in my ear. I'll drown you like a rat so fast you're…"

"Dhamon!" Rikali hissed.

"The way we came down is blocked," Dhamon called back. The light was getting softer as he continued to move away from them. "So forward is our only option."

"Well, I don't like our option," Rikali moaned as she followed him, walking on her tiptoes and letting her arms float out to her sides. "I'm too young to drown, Dhamon Grimwulf!"

Rig swiftly followed, trying to shut out their words and concentrate on the water. His element, whether fresh or salt, he felt it flow about him, pleasantly cool despite the summer, as it was part of an underground stream shielded from the heat by the tons of rock that cocooned it. He concentrated on the flow, determined to discover how the water entered the chamber.

"No other way out," the mariner growled after a few minutes. Softer, he said, "Always figured I'd die by drowning. Just didn't want to die with Dhamon."

Dhamon's torchlight danced spookily against the water's surface and the elaborately carved rock walls. The light touched softly on hundreds of images of dwarves. The dwarves were forging weapons, cooking, mining; a fat couple was dancing around the image of an anvil; a child was stacking rocks. On the ceiling was a tiled image of Reorx, almost identical to the one they'd seen on the floor above. There was a great gash in one of the walls, and Rig gestured to it.

"That has to be where the stream broke through. But it's more like a river now because of all the rain," he said, quickly moving toward it. He bumped into something and pitched forward into the water. He came up sputtering, the kobold on his back complaining shrilly. He felt about beneath the water-a stone bench, a stone table, a few other objects he couldn't readily identify. He forced himself to move slowly, bumping into more things hidden beneath the inky surface, and he sent a shower of water Rikali's way to get her attention. "Over here! And be careful."

For once he cursed all the weapons he'd loaded himself down with. He'd be swimming with ease now, and not slowly navigating around, if he didn't have the glaive on his back. But he wouldn't allow himself to drop it. "All this damn rain," he said to himself when he finally reached the gash in the wall. "It must have swollen the stream so much that it broke through a thin section of wall. Yep, it's thin here." He broke off a piece of rock.

The half-elf was treading water at his side, for the water had risen and she could only touch bottom with her toes.

"Well, that's good to know," she huffed, "we're all gonna drown ‘cause of all the rain."

Dhamon had sloshed up behind her. He looked nonplused, his face ever stoic, eyes flitting to his left and right. His breathing was regular, and he moved deliberately, as if he knew where he was going, and was not in the least bit worried about what lay ahead.

The mariner shook his head at Dhamon's apparent lack of concern, took a deep breath and entered the gash, holding onto the rock wall so he wouldn't be swept away. Fetch coughed and tightened his grip on the mariner's neck. The torchlight showed Rig's fingers inching higher on the wall.

"What's he doing, lover?" Rikali had her hand on Dhamon's shoulder. He was helping her to stay above water.

Dhamon didn't answer as she continued to fret and shower him with useless questions. He was watching the mariner's fingers, becoming harder to make out as the torchlight faded. There was a final sputtering, then the flame went out, smothering them in a thick and absolute darkness. Rikali moaned and dug her fingers into his shoulder.