Legends of the Halcyon Era

Episode 9 - The Devil's Yard Journey, Part 7

After their battle with the ferocious, headless creature which lurked in the tunnels behind the Moon-Bog door, the Diggers try to collect themselves.

"Seriously," said Nytetrayn. "It feels like we've been down here for weeks. Months, even."

"Maybe we have," suggested Fenix.

Adam tapped something on his sunglasses. "By my reckoning, we've been down here for about a week... although you guys were here longer than me, so it's been longer for you."

"Aye carumba," said Nyte. "That doesn't even make any sense. We've slept once and had one meal in the entire time we've been here, how can it have been a week?!"

"More than a week for you," Adam corrected.

"Fine, more than a week."

"Well, you're the one who suggested it," said Fenix. "'Seriously,' even!"

"Not that serious!"

"Whatever," said Fenix. "I'm just glad we're about half done."

"Half?" asked Adam. "Where do we have to go yet?"

"Just about," said Fenix. "After this there's that 'Sarnath' place, and then the main chamber, but that's where we get our payout." He started making a tall, wide gesture with his hands as he said, "Huuuuuuuuge refractors!" He then pumped his fist in a victorious gesture.

"What, you're not comparing them to your guns anymore?" Nyte asked.

"Y'know, I've thought about it. I'm pretty sure that even by my standard of armaments, I'm underselling these puppies."

"Eh, whatever," said Adam. "Let's just move on."

"Right," said Fenix. "Now that that's been established, I'd like to see what the flaming eyeball was guarding."

"Same," said Nytetrayn. "I hope it's food. I'm hungry."

"We just had lunch!" Fenix shouted in disbelief.

"That was before the big flaming eyeball," said Nyte. "Besides, you guys are the ones saying we've been down here for more than a week, so how long ago was that? Days? Years? Months?"

"Years should come after months," Xenos said. "And after how much you ate, I'd be surprised you could be hungry within this century!"

Nyte just took a drink from his canteen again. Truth was, he was actually thirstier than he was hungry.

"Anyway, there's two branches, each with a room at the end. Shall we take the right or the left first?"

"Left," said Adam, as he began moving in that direction. At the end of the route was a large, round room with a chest in the center. Adam stood to the side of the chest and opened it, revealing a ridiculous amount of zenny.

"Score," said Adam, scooping up as much of it as he could and putting it into his pack. Before he knew it, Nyte and Xenos were right there, scooping up whatever Adam couldn't fit.

Once they'd finished grabbing all the zenny they could carry, Nyte dashed to the opposite, identical room, and opened the chest in the same manner as before. Only this time, rather than zenny, the chest held a long, metal tube. As Nyte examined it, the tube seemed like a rifle barrel, but the inside was covered in a reflective surface. At the ends were threading, which looked like they might fit the lens found earlier.

Nyte looked through it like a telescope at Fenix.

"...what?" asked the masked Digger.

"This looks like your kind of thing, Old-Timer."

"I wonder what this is for?" Adam said, looking at the object. "Everything in here aside from the money seems to have a specific purpose. Maybe it's like the electro-gun you guys found earlier."

As Fenix examined the piece, he noted, "It's mirrored on the inside... that's an old trick for increasing the power of a laser. Crude, not very effective, but with the right kind of lens and a powerful enough generator, very deadly."

"This must be another 'Use This to Kill the Blank!' toolkits," Xenos said.

"Yay, a treasure hunt," said Fenix.

"Yay, whoo-hoo, never been on one of those before," Nyte added sarcastically.

"We don't have all the parts," Xenos said, "unless you plan to fire without a handle, a trigger and a power source."

"Maybe the rest is in the last passage," said Nyte. "So, onwards and upwards?"

The group proceeded into the final, middle path of the fork in the road. It bent slightly to the right, revealing another fork far ahead, but this one contained only two prongs. Neither side looked much more inviting than the other, though the one leading right had a chest sitting in front of it.

Nytetrayn was knocked into the side wall by the lumbering lummox in the mighty mech, as Xenos zipped up to the chest and inspected it before opening it from the side. The Pirate found that it contained an object resembling a gun without a barrel.

"...did anyone get the number of that pickup?" Nyte asked, dazed. "We need to swap insurance info..."

"Well, now we have all the parts," Adam said.

"You seem intent on putting this thing together," Xenos said to him.

"So put the damn thing together already!" said Fenix.

"Sure, I'll do it," Adam said, combining the contributed parts from the others together, and handing the weapon to Nyte. "Merry Christmas."

With bulging eyes, Fenix said, "I didn't know we'd been down here that long!"

"Thanks!" Nyte said with a huge grin, as he accepted the gift. "Now, I just need something to shoot..."

As Nyte and the others looked around, they spotted the end of the right path: another large, domed room with a chest in the middle of it.

Adam made the first move and reached the chest first, proceeding to open it from the side, as all experienced Diggers do. It swung open quite easily, and sitting at the bottom was a scrap of paper. As the others joined him, Adam picked it up and read it, with Nyte peeking over his shoulder.

Adam said, "It reads, 'Look out!'"

No sooner than the words left Adam's lips, than the passageway out of the room was cut off by a massive stone slab falling into place before it.

"Here comes your fun, Nyte," Adam said.

Xenos looked up to the ceiling above. "I hate you."

"If I hadn't, you would've and you know it," Adam said.

"Not you," said Xenos.

"He meant me," said the now-familiar disembodied voice.

"Ah."

Just then, a chorus of shrieks and moans followed, possessing an almost harmonic quality. At the top of the room, a hole opened, and through it dripped something long and sinuous, covered in black scales that sparkled in the light. Without warning, it suddenly spread two huge pairs of bat-like wings and dove at the Diggers with four powerful limbs, each equipped with curved claws. With its wings spread, they could see the reptilian head atop its shoulders, eyes blazing red and fangs lining its mouth as it opened wide for a demonic scream.

"Ah, good!" Nyte shouted, as he wasted no time opening fire on the creature with his new gun. It banked to the left, screeching as a beam of crimson energy tore through one of its wings.

"Oooh, I like this one," Nyte said as he kissed the gun, then fired at the other wing.

Meanwhile, Fenix had leaped into the arms of Xenos' mech, shouting "He's gonna eat me!"

Adam rolled clear of the creature's dive, opening fire at it while shouting, "Fenix! Shut up and shoot!"

The monster twisted in midair and nosedived again, this time towards Adam specifically, grinning as it grabbed him by the ankle with its hindfoot, taking off into the air again. Taking care not to hit Adam, Nyte fired again, hitting the other wing as it let out a pained grunt, while Fenix and Xenos let loose with their own armaments.

Adam, meanwhile, tried shooting the thing in the leg, which proved successful as he was then dropped from a great height as the creature let out a piercing wail. He performed a flip in mid-air, and used his mechanical legs to absorb the shock from hitting the ground before slowly getting to his feet.

With Adam now clear, Fenix let loose a blast from his shotgun at the creature's tail-end, which led to another loud squeal. Xenos opened fire with his beam launchers, which smashed the beast against the wall.

Nyte kept firing on it with the laser, and it shrieked as the beams sliced it in half. But it wasn't done, as now each half took back to the air, each with its own set of wings. Now the pair were circling the party.

"Well, damn," said Nyte.

"Oh, now that is just messed up," said Fenix, who pulled out his Concussion Blaster. "Let's try this again," he said, firing at the beast's hindquarters, causing it to let out a roar at the impact of the blasts.

Xenos tried firing his beam launchers at its chest, but the monster dodged the beams and dove at Fenix, eyes blazing. Nyte knocked Fenix out of the way and fired right at the oncoming beast with his laser, while Xenos switched to Gatling cannons and let loose.

The combination of laser beam and Gatling gun fire finally brought the beast crashing to the ground, where it roared as it melted away.

"Heh," Nyte chuckled as he took a sip from his energy canteen. "Hey, Adam, looks like I owe you a good X-mas present now," he said with a smile.

"I guess so," Adam said with a smile and a laugh.

"You never gave me a good Christmas gift," said Fenix with a mock-pout.

"You never gave me one, either," said Nyte.

The door barricading them in the room dissolved as they spoke, and the door opened.

"Well then," said Xenos as he reversed the direction of his mech and headed for the door. "Let's-a go!"

The rest of the group followed Xenos back, with Adam taking up the rear, but not for long, as a disembodied giant hand dropped down from above, once again grabbing him and carrying him off into the mysterious ether above as he yelled, "I'm getting really sick of thi–!"

"See you later, Adam!" Nytetrayn shouted skyward. "Remember to not accept any drinks!"

The remaining three ventured back to the fork in the path they had come from just earlier, only to find the chest was no longer there. Instead, three identical, cylindrical containers awaited them: one contained an indignant-looking Adam Powers, one held a rather impatient-looking Janine, and one held what appeared to be a Black Steel drenched in black liquid, who was preoccupied with drawing butts on the glass with the fluid and giggling at his handiwork.

Before any of the Diggers could make a move to free them, the two hands came down from above, and one snapped its fingers, and the capsules went from transparent to opaque. From there, the two hands began shuffling the containers at almost imperceptible speed, making it impossible to know which of their friends was in which capsule.

Then, the hands held themselves out over the three capsules in an inviting fashion.

"I... think we're supposed to pick one?" said Nytetrayn.

One hand gave Nytetrayn a thumbs-up.

"Oh. Nice."

"So what," said Xenos, "first we're fighting for our lives against eldritch nightmares, now we're taking part in a magic show?"

"Or a game," said Fenix. "I think someone might be playing with us."

The hands clapped at Fenix's statement, then resumed their positions.

Fenix and Xenos tried to use their devices to scan the capsules, but to no avail. From the outside, all three seemed to be identical. Despite this, one of the hands wagged a finger at them, as if to chide them.

"I think they might consider that cheating," said Nyte. One hand gave a thumbs-up again, then pointed its index finger at the young Digger.

"Uh..."

"I think it wants you to be the one to choose, Nyte," said Fenix.

"Well, that hardly seems fair," said Xenos. "How were we to know that trying to circumvent the unstated rules of the game would hold consequences?!"

Nyte stepped forward. "I... don't like this. It's like being forced to choose between our friends. Or at least, one friend and two acquaintances. Wait, how long do you have to know someone for them to be an acqu–"

"Nyte, I think the hands are getting impatient," Fenix said, as one began to tap its fingers on the floor behind the capsules. "If it makes you feel any better, you're not choosing between friends, it's completely random. Just, I dunno, intuit something."

"Alright," said Nytetrayn reluctantly. He stepped forward again and looked each capsule up and down. After stepping back and staring intently at the three chambers for a moment, he finally pointed at the first one.

With that, the hands and the three capsules all rose into the air, disappearing back into that mysterious space from which they came, only the first capsule's contents were left on the ground below.

"Janine!" Nyte shouted, as he and the others ran up to her. "What happened?"

"Where have you been?" asked Xenos.

"And does this place have a gift shop?" Fenix asked.

"Ugh," she said, holding her stomach. "I don't know what that was about, but I feel nauseous. Anyone got some Pepto?"

Nyte dug around in his pack for a moment, and pulled out a bottle. "Thanks," she said, before slamming back a chug. "Ah, that's better," she added, wiping her lips and handing back the bottle.

"So, anyway," she continued, "it was really weird. The hand just took me to this... room. An empty room, with nothing in it but a bench carved out of the wall. Boring as hell, lemme tell ya'."

Perking up, she looked around and asked, "So, what have you guys been up to since I left?"

"We'll tell you on the way back," Nyte said, each of the guys chiming in as they made their way back to the central chamber and got Janine caught up.

As the group arrived at the central chamber, ready to take on the next challenge, they were instead met by a shocking sight.

Where there had once been decayed, slimy, stained gray stone had been replaced by some kind of smoother, glossier surface made of some unidentifiable substance. Parts of the floor and wall appeared to be flickering, as if glitching out, while other parts looked like they were formed from green wireframes set against pitch black. Peering through other parts was like looking into a window, where strange hexagons floated in the distance, honeycombed in midair. It was as though the entire room had started to come apart and transform, all at once.

Behind them, the door to the Moon-Bog flickered like static before disappearing.

As the quartet looked all around them, Nytetrayn was the first to speak. "What... what's happening to this place?"

"It's like it's... destabilizing, or something," said Xenos.

"I don't know," said Fenix, "but I don't wanna be here when it's done doing whatever it's doing."

"Then we should try to finish up and get out of here, fast," said Janine. The others nodded in agreement as they looked to the next door the poem spoke of.

As the group prepared to move, Xenos' mech let out a low whirring sound as it slunk to the ground, its lights dimming.

"Oh, no. No, no, no..." said Xenos, as he tried to get the mech up and active again, to no avail. Looking at the others, he said, "I think it's busted. Too much damage or too much energy spent or both, or something." He climbed out of the mech, grabbing a few weapons and other odds and ends. "Whatever. We'll get it on the way back.".

Only two doors remained: the massive black gate which had stood at the center of its siblings, and the one to the right. The rightmost door was a gate of white stone, bearing the image of a massive creature with an octopus for a head and tentacles intertwined all over, with the barely-legible word "Sarnath" carved beneath.

At least, that's what the door looked like between bouts of flickering.

"'Sarnath doomed with far worse things'..." Xenos said. "Can we...?"

Janine reached out, but before she could touch the gate, it seemed to stabilize itself long enough to open before them. She looked back to the others, who nodded to her before she led the way in. But this time, it felt as though the very hallway was rushing past them in a blur of green waves of angular geometry.