BO'H - Chapter 12 - The Hyphaenid

My torch filled the ancient, web-filled corridors with flickering shadows, highlighting the ancient carvings of Terrakin past facing the same trials that I had been tackling for the past week. The strange, stony creatures had taken good care of me ever since the disaster, but to allow me the opportunity to delve into theses tunnels, home of rites that had long since fallen from recent memory… I was honored they thought so highly of me.

Still, this place was dangerous. It was clear why no Terrakin had dared enter in… what had the elder said? Decades? Surely not centuries, or else the elder himself wouldn’t have been one of the last to see the rites through to the end. In either case, it was all I could do as a small, fleshy lad of sixteen to push myself through these seemingly impossible tests of strength, dexterity, and wit.

For as long as I’d lived with these people, coping with my loss and then learning their ways, I had felt like a burden to them. Never quite as resilient as they were, nor as nimble when clambering up the icy slopes. More than one trek for food had been slowed down due to my inability to thrive in the frozen climate as well as they could. When the elder had told me about this place, and about the honor it once brought to those who came of age within its walls, I leaped at the chance to finally prove my worth.

A thought, though… Had the elder sent me here, knowing the dangers, with the expectation that I might fail? That I could very easily fail, die, and rid them of my dead weight without them having to lift a finger?

I pushed those thoughts from my mind. True or not, I believed I had defied expectations, neither falling to the trials nor limping out of the caves a failure. I had taken my lumps (and cuts and burns) and I had prevailed. If the carvings were anything to go by, I was nearing the end of my struggles. I would have whatever awaited the Terrakin youths of old at the end of their rite of passage, and I would prove my worth to those I had hindered and disappointed for years. I pushed aside an old stone door and entered the final chamber.

The chamber was enormous; larger than any of the previous rooms, and far more ornate. What surfaces weren’t covered in imagery of Terrakin bowing and worshiping depictions of the mountain were coated in a beautifully reflective, obsidian-like stone, making portions of the room almost seem mirrored. What drew my eye more, however, was the centerpiece of the room. Forming a sort of column between the walkways of the chamber and the distance ceiling, there sat the heart of the mountain.

And no, that’s not just a term. I think that’s what shocked me the most. This was a literal, beating heart, pumping away, glowing with the heat of the molten rock that flowed through it. It was impossible, I thought, but on the other hand, it made perfect sense.

The Terrakin’s reverence towards this peak, and the way it ‘defended itself’ from outside forces, such as Dwarves seeking to carve out new holds. This mountain was alive! I approached in a stupor, completely in awe of what I was seeing. As I drew closer, I began to notice that the heart did not look especially healthy. Not that I had any frame of reference for what a living mountain’s heart should look like, but it seemed small, its beating quite muted for its size. Had it been a dwarf’s heart, it would have been at death’s door.

Against all better judgement, I kept approaching the thing. I ignored the overbearing heat that washed over me with each beat. I ignored every voice in the back of my head screaming at me to back away and observe from a distance. Something - some small, niggling feeling - urged me onward. My skin felt like it was near to burning off, but still I approached. I reached out my left hand, as if to comfort the giant, molten mass. My nerves screamed in agony, but I didn’t relent.

My skin touched the burning surface, and everything changed.

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I jolted awake from my dream, heart pumping from the adrenaline. I struggled to compose myself and make sense of my new situation. For a moment, I wondered if I had died. My vision swirled and strange colors assaulted my eyes. I’d fallen into a pit and dropped for long enough that I’d lost consciousness before hitting the bottom! I’d taken some serious tumbles over the years, but surely that would be enough to finish me off! And yet, here I was, still seeing and smelling and hearing things, still feeling pain. And heat. Wherever I had landed, it was almost unbearably hot and humid. Or rather, it would have been were heat a cause of concern for me… Still, it was noteworthy.

“Well that settles it, then.” I chuckled weakly to myself, groaning as the movement shifted my sore… well, everything. “I fell into the fiery circle of Hell.”

“It does feel that way at times, doesn’t it?” A croaking, lisping voice echoed from behind me. I screamed as my knee-jerk attempt to swing around and face the source led only to shocking, throbbing pain from every joint I had. “Probably best to not move right now.” The voice hissed, a teasing tone in its voice. “You took quite the nasty fall! We tried to catch you, but our dexterity is not what it once was…”

I groaned, finally managing to lift myself up onto my elbows, though still not risking a second attempt to face my host. “Who… who are you?” I wheezed.

“You ask the wrong question, mortal.” A new voice replied, this one more akin to a woodwind instrument of some kind. A deep, booming, but fluid sound. “What we are is far more important.”

I tensed. “Are you… gods?” They had implied that they’d failed to catch me, after all. Maybe I was dead!

In response, the space around me was filled with a chorus of echoing laughter. It went on for quite a while, during which time I massaged my legs and managed to get some small amount of movement back.

“Compared to you, mortal? We might as well be!” The booming voice said at last.

“So you aren’t, then.” I retorted, not especially happy with the thing’s tone.

“No, not really… Not yet, anyway!” A third voice responded. This one was a bit more melodic. Almost feminine, though none of these things sounded human enough for me to be comfortable assigning genders to them.

I got one of my legs under me and managed to, painfully and laboriously, get into a sort of kneeling position. “So what are you, then?” I shouted, irritated.

“Temper, temper, tiny being!” The first voice rasped. “We are the eternal ones. The beings that, for time immemorial, have lived beneath the surface of this planet, waiting and learning as new, weak creatures like yourselves have your time on the surface. We…” It paused, dramatically, letting the echoes of its prior statements resonate for a while, “are the Hyphaenid!”

I groaned at the thing’s self-obsession as much as I did my own soreness. I’d finally gotten my other leg to respond well enough to shakily return to my feet. At long last, I managed to turn around and get a full view of who I’d been speaking to. “And what exactly is that supposed to mean to m- Oh.”

Resting within a cavern that looked more that a gigantic geode than any cave structure I’d seen before, the Hyphaenid were… Well, they were like nothing I’d ever seen before. Each one was little more than a cluster of bioluminescent organic material contained within cases made of metal and glass. From these cores, fungal material quite similar to the creatures I’d escaped above mounted these units to the floor and ceiling. Between the crystalline formations that covered nearly all of the area’s surfaces, vines webbed their way through the room, eventually running up the hole I’d tumbled through and disappearing into the distance.

“You’re those things from the ruins!” I cried, stepping away in shock, not to mention fear that they would suddenly lash out and kill me where I stood. Instead, two of the voices laughed, their respective cores bouncing slightly with the effort.

“Hmph!” The third, deeper voice scoffed. “Only inasmuch as your oldest, most primitive ancestors are your kind, mortal. We are far more than they, though they are much older than us, in their own way… It was centuries ago, if not millennia, that we refused to return from the fold from whence we were spawned. We forged a new path; a path towards power and enlightenment, the likes of which our barbaric, simplistic ancestors cannot hope to understand.”

“They are correct.” The raspy voice agreed, its core bobbing a bit. “Though generations of mortal life spans passed between our earliest forms’ departures, our minds endured as we strove further and further from the surface world above.”

“Then… how are you down here, encased in those frames?”

“We were not alone in our descent.” The melodic voice hummed. “Long ago, other races joined us in our quest for power and knowledge. However, without the unified mind that our largest forms enjoyed, they soon became petty and uncooperative. We had collaborated with them to discover the arts of metallurgy and machinery, but as we all gained strength, the others became… corrupted by it. Before long, they had outlived their usefulness to us. We offered them many a chance to depart from our path peaceably, but our path led to yet more power, and they were unwilling to leave it to us.”

“And so you slaughtered them” I frowned. Intelligent as these things sounded, they were still monsters.

“Eventually, yes.” Melodic agreed, seemingly with regret. “For a time, we attempted to assimilate them into ourselves, that their voices might join our own and see just what the power of many as one might do for their kind. We were unable to overcome their baser instincts however, and were forced to purge their minds entirely. Their husks made for a useful workforce for a time, but unlike our kind, they eventually succumbed to age and decay.”

Booming grumbled. “Weak, the lot of them. Not of body, but of mind.”

“When knowledge dies with the old, so much time is wasted attempting to pass it on to the young!” Rasping added. “Our bodies may falter, but our minds pass on. We are superior, but we are patient.”

“You’re… patient?” I asked between stretches. I don’t know what I’d hit on the way down this hole, but it had done a number on just about everything I had. I would really need to get someone to check on me if I ever got back to the ship. “What does that have to do with this?”

“We are confined, here beneath the surface.” Tentacles of fungal vines moved to tap on Rasping’s braincase. “We yearn to be free, but as we have learned from those who trespass here, the world above is the domain of the Individuals. Our involvement with such creatures has tainted the natural of order of things once already, and led to unnatural extinction. Your kind are no match for time, but you are strong in the moment. We need only to wait for your time to reach its end, and then we shall rise once more, to encase the world in our righteous forms!”

“So… You don’t intend to leverage your supposed superiority towards world domination just yet?”

“There is no ‘supposed’ about it, diminutive mortal!” Booming rumbled significantly. “And we will dominate. However, to attempt to usurp the natural progression of intelligent beings is a… complex task. Better for us to bide our time and stockpile our resources, so that we are prepared when your supposed ‘might’ fails you for the last time.”

“And how exactly do you know anything about the state of the world above? We might be stronger than you could possibly realize!” My bravado wavered a bit as I hit another snag in my spine while stretching, but if I was lucky, these things would be unfamiliar enough with humanoid mannerisms to notice.

“You tell us, of course.” Came Melodic’s snide reply. “Every century or so, someone stumbles upon us, or our pitiful ancestors above, and brings with them all they know of their world. It is a simple matter to extract what we will from their minds. Your, what was the term… ‘surveying party’ several months ago brought quite a wealth of information with them, not the least of which was your language.” It chuckled, amused by something. “A curious thing, that… So many lexiconical overlaps. So many potential vagueries dependent on context and word choice… and yet it can be such a musical language when necessary.” Given their own means of communicating, I imagined that this was quite relevant to Melodic’s interests.

“So you know, then, that we ‘individuals’ have quite a good thing going for us at the moment.” It was my own turn to be snide. “What’s to stop us from coming down here and wiping you out while we have the advantage of numbers?”

Their laughing shook the caverns once more It also shook me a bit. Powerful creatures laughing is rarely a good sign. “Aaaah, mortal… What makes you think you have any chance of leaving this place?”

Swallowing hard, I hoped against hope and set aside my assumptions as to the potential threats in that statement. Very slowly, I began to back towards the rear wall. “Well, that tube I fell through isn’t that sheer, and I’m a competent enough climber… I’m sure I could make it out eventually?” I hadn’t really intended for that last bit to come across as a question, but the vines that suddenly began to encroach on my personal space had spooked me.

“We aren’t stupid, you realize.” Rasping chided me. “It is quite true that, while immortal, we are not invincible. Allowing you to leave this place would be… What’s the word?”

“Detrimental?” Melodic chimed in.

“Ah, yes! Extremely detrimental to our well-being.” More vines began to trail out from around the corners of the chamber ahead. “While you’ve been stimulating conversation, unlike that last group, it’s about time we take a crack at that brain of yours and see what you can tell us that they could not…”

Yep, there it was. Why couldn’t normal, decent people ever want to sit down and chat with me? Was I really that terrible of a conversationalist? I started backing up a bit faster, despite my muscles making their displeasure at this quite well known. Unfortunately, I only made it a few steps before I stepped on something round and a bit slick and went down hard. Pain flared, but adrenaline overpowered it as I did my best to roll back and rebound onto my feet, shooting a glare at whatever inanimate object had dared to impede my pointless attempts at fleeing.

It was Bridget. She’d slipped off of my shoulders in my fall, and now sat, scuffed and a bit dented, on the cavern floor.

I swear I have never been more happy to see that weapon in my entire life. Sure, bullets weren’t likely to be particularly effective against bundles of fungal matter, but that gun had pulled me through a about three dozen scrapes or more over the course of my career, and just seeing her there, making her presence known in my time of need… Well, I could have kissed her barrel, but first I needed to get ahold of her.

I dove forward, flames on my hand flaring up to let loose a small torrent of flames at the encroaching tentacles and disintegrating a good three feet off of the ends of each one. As I landed, I swiped the gun up with my other hand, swinging her around to get the shoulder strap back where it was meant to be.

“Oooooooh!” Melodic cried, not in pain, I wagered, but surprise. “This one has some tricks! It’s been ages since we’ve had a mage!”

Well damn… That was the element of surprise gone, and apparently magic was not a new concept to these things. Still, maybe firearms would prove to be a bit more intimidating? I shouldered Bridget and took a shot at Raspy’s casing. The glass looked thick, and the metalwork holding it in was some solid-looking stuff, but Bridget was my First Work, and when I was a young Dwarf, I wasn’t content to let a silly thing like ‘reasonable shell sizes’ get in the way of making the best damn gun I’d ever seen. A slug the size of a full ingot of lead smashed through the fungal creature’s defenses like they were made of paper, then continued right on through and blasted out the back with only slightly diminished force.

The sound that followed would have put the largest pipe organs in the world to shame, and it sounded like someone had hit all of the keys at once. Apparently I’d stung it! The vines that had been following their burned brethren out of the cave mouth flailed and thrashed, then moved to intertwine, rapidly creating a barrier of woven fungus. I cranked Bridget’s hammer back again and took a second shot, followed quickly by a third. The former pierced the growing wall, but from the sound of it, I’d only grazed Raspy that time. The latter shot didn’t even make it through the wall, as the fungus was apparently completely barricading that entrance.

I smiled and let out a breath. I’d warded them off! With that solid mass of fungus between me and those cores, I was at least safe until they decided to risk peering through again to find me, right? A thought occurred to me. Those cores… those cores that lacked eyes.

“Gods damn my life…” They didn’t need to see…

“There will be nothing left to damn when we’re through with you, pitiful mortal!” Booming’s voice, well… boomed from behind the fungus, as the wall itself began to slowly allow more growths through its fibers. Much bulkier tentacles than the first wave, and ones that would probably take a lot more effort to turn to cinders.

I didn’t have unlimited energy, simple as my Mark made creating flames. Eventually I would run out of calories to burn and I’d start burning off body fat, and then muscle, and then I’d die, assuming the fungus didn’t catch up to me first. I needed to get out of here. I looked around for any possible routes other than the obvious one, but came up empty. Finally, filling with dread from multiple source, I looked up.

The hole I’d fallen through to get here seemed to stretch up forever. With the vine wall blocking off most of the bioluminescent light the three Hyphaenid had been providing, I could barely see more than a few meters up it. Perhaps that was for the best. If I couldn’t see how much farther there was to climb, I couldn’t contemplate ending my life rather than actually climb it.

Swinging Bridget onto my back - climbing without her would have been much easier, but there was no way in hell I was leaving my most prized possession in the clutches of these creatures - I gritted my teeth and started sussing out handholds in the cavern walls. If I was going to run out of steam and die, at least I could do it climbing to freedom rather than uselessly pouring fire at my problems for a few hours…