Chapter 43: Cave Hazards

  The swarm of vampyre bats engulfed Chastity, swirling around her like a ravenous whirlwind. She crouched low, trying to protect her head and face from the flying creatures. Their shrill shrieks assaulted her eardrums.

  They are probably frightened, Chastity reasoned, trying not to panic. Startled into flight!

  Maybe the bats had just gotten settled again in the deep recesses of the cave after the goblins cleared out, and she had disturbed them. Maybe they would settle down on their own after a while. Even so, the bats nipped at her. She felt a painful bite on her exposed neck. Sharp little teeth repeatedly pierced the arms of her cloth tunic where the chainmail did not cover. She felt countless leathery wings and clawed hands scrabbling against her.

  “Oww!”

  There were, of course, vampire bats back in her world (without the fancy y in their name). Chastity knew them only by reputation, but her draining Life Points confirmed the very real threat of this situation: they fed on blood.

  Death by a thousand cuts! she lamented, wincing from the stinging pain. When did I last get a rabies shot!?

  Chastity, still huddling, hurried away from the ledge overlooking the bat-spewing chasm. Trying to see through the swarm, she made her way past the empty prisoner cages and back into the chamber she assumed was the abandoned goblin camp. The batswarm followed, crazed, hungry, disoriented–or all three.

  “OUCH! Stop it!” Chastity yelled. She swung her javelin in a wide arc, catching several bats. But a dozen more flapping forms filled the space in an instant.

  The bats didn’t seem to like the light emanating from her lantern. It confused or enraged them. She might be able to use that to her advantage, but the light was nearly swallowed up by the mass of swirling black bodies. It was like a cloud of dark smoke.

  Smoke! That’s it!

  Desperate, Chastity smashed her lantern onto the matted straw clumped on the floor. It burst into flame at once, and acrid smoke started to fill the chamber. The used straw smelled even worse now that it was burning.

  The bat shrieks intensified. The swarm undulated and morphed, recoiling from the sudden eruption of light, heat, and smoke.

  “Go away!” Chastity shouted, swinging her javelin wildly. “Get back!”

  The swarm surged away, seeking sanctuary elsewhere in the cave system. The earsplitting shrieks were replaced by the sound of crackling flame.

  Chastity breathed a deep sigh of relief. Unfortunately, she took in a lungful of smoke and began coughing violently. The fire had spread to the rest of the straw and filthy blankets, and now the whole chamber was ablaze. She felt the heat from the dancing flames against her face and saw putrid black smoke gathering against the cave ceiling.

  Uh oh, Chastity thought. She wasn’t sure there was a way for the smoke to escape because of the collapsed entrance. What if smoke filled the whole cave, suffocating her? No, the fire should run out of fuel and burn itself out. But how long would there be enough breathable air?

  Working fast, Chastity grabbed a piece of a broken barrel and wrapped torn burlap around one end, fashioned a makeshift torch. Her lantern was smashed, but she still needed light. She stowed the javelin and quickly assembled a second torch, keeping this one as an unlit backup.

  Then, before the smoke enveloped her, she rushed off, choosing one of the downward passageways branching off the main chamber. There had to be another way out of here. Somewhere, somehow!

  She was deeper now, and the flickering torchlight was an inferior substitute to the lantern. But she was out of the smoke and free of the bloodsucking swarm. She found herself in a curving passageway large enough to walk through without ducking. The natural cave walls were gouged all around from exploratory mining.

  Chastity did a quick check of her Character Record to monitor her status.

  Okay, Chastity. Not too bad. Still plenty of Life and Focus Points.

  She gingerly touched her neck and the tips of her glove came back red. She grimaced. She was tempted to stop and use her Divine Healing ability to bring herself up to full, but wanted to press on. Her sense of claustrophobia had not exactly abated and finding a way out of this underground trap was of paramount importance. She didn’t want to imagine being stuck down here without any light.

  After several more minutes of downward sloping, the passage opened up to another large chamber. She could tell this one had been heavily mined. What might have once been an elegant cathedral of stone looked like a demolition zone. Rock and rubble were strewn everywhere. Open pits that led nowhere pocked the floor.

  Down here, the silence was as thick as the air was stale. Chastity imagined she could hear her own heart thumping in the stillness. But there was another sound. Subtle. Almost a rattle. Chastity held the torch in front of her and peered carefully across the chamber.

  What is that noise?

  She strained to listen, not planning to make the same mistake of calling out into the gloom.

  The rattle intensified. It was not like a rattlesnake, but more like somebody playing a primitive maracara or similar instrument. There was movement in the shadows at the far end of the chamber. Emerging from some holes in the ground came two gaunt figures. No, gaunt was not accurate. They were emaciated. Nope… wrong again.

  Skeletons!?

  Chastity watched in disbelief as two humanoid skeletons dragged themselves out of the ground and shambled in her direction, their dusty bones clacking together.

  Okay, I get it, this is a fantasy world–but how can skeletons move on their own with no muscles, tendons, nerves, etc.?

  “Identify,” she said, more than a little creeped out.

  The skeletons shone with a faint outline, and the Paladin received her unsurprising answer.

  Relatively low level, Chastity thought. At least I have that going for me.

  The skeletons moved slowly, and the chamber was large, so Chastity took the luxury of Detecting Evil as well.

  They say knowledge is power, after all.

  Chastity received another unsurprising result.

  She ignored the pinging notifications about her proficiencies increasing, switching her torch to her nondominant hand and drawing a javelin once again. She was now down to 16 Focus Points.

  The words of Yr the wood elf rang in her mind, ‘...ever since the seal was broken and the Black Dragon released, it has been difficult for the souls of the wicked to find their way to that netherworld.’

  The skeletons shambled closer, jagged boney hands outstretched, animated by some dark power. Chastity did not think they were looking for a hug.