A Soldier's Life

Chapter 156: Sanctuary

The water was cool as it soaked my boots, then my socks, and my linen pants, working its way up my body. I was waist-deep, and a cloud of filth was spreading out from me, fouling the clear water. “Maveith, come on in! The water is fine!” Maveith stood on the shore, uncertain. “We saw the cockatrice bathing. There is nothing dangerous in the water.”

The tall goliath looked around the room, turning his head slowly. “I think I will harvest the cockatrices first. That way, I do not have to bathe twice. I will also retrieve my arrows.”

I rolled my eyes at Maveith. “Well, I saw some wild onion stems among the tall grass. You can dig them up as well.”

Maveith’s deep voice sounded hurt that I thought he could not spot the dark green stems of the onions. “I saw them too, Eryk. There looks to be some garlic as well. Did you see the garlic?” He challenged somewhat playfully.

“No. Is there garlic too? If you start pulling up the root vegetables, see if you can capture some of the worms the cockatrices were eating. I want to see if I can use the collector on them.” Maveith looked doubtful at that statement.

I started removing my armor, one piece at a time, cleaning it before tossing it into the grass to dry. Maveith focused on the cockatrices. I would throw him in if he tried not to bathe. We both smelled so foul that we no longer noticed how bad it was.

After my armor was off and cleaned to the best of my ability, I worked on my clothes,soaking and rinsing them repeatedly until they no longer produced clouds in the water. The dirty water quickly settled into the sandy bottom, filtering downward. Eventually, I was completely naked, so I produced my shaving kit to retrieve the small bar of soap inside. I then returned the rest of the kit. I scrubbed out every crack and crevice of dirt, dried blood, and sap. I used the entire bar of soap, but it was worth it. I moved under the waterfall and began to rinse my hair and scrub my face. I remained under the cascading water until my skin was puckered, pale, and perfectly clean.

I had spent two hours bathing, and Maveith worked the entire time. I might have felt guilty if I had not asked him to join me a dozen times while he worked. I pulled out clean underclothes from my storage and dressed. I only had one spare pair of legion boots in my space, and I was wearing them now. I no longer felt like a soldier on an infinite campaign. I felt almost human, if I was not trapped deep inside a dungeon that was trying to kill me.

Maveith had a tarp in the grass with a stack of bird meat and organs. There was a pile of small wild onions and a second pile of some pungent bulbous wild garlic. The onions and garlic would give our meals a lot of flavor in the future. After bathing for the first time in weeks, I was reluctant to dig them up. “Eryk, if you cook, I will bathe. We have about eight hours before we should leave.”

I nodded and was glad the goliath was tracking our time as well. The last thing either of us wanted was to be caught bathing when the cockatrices respawned. Maveith finally stripped and entered the water to wash himself and his gear.

I focused on cooking. I heated some bear fat in Maveith’s cast iron pan. I cut up several onions and two garlic cloves and cooked them. One of the cockatrice breasts was cut into thin strips, and I ground up some pepper. I seasoned each side with a little salt and pepper, then seared both sides of the bird meat, cooking it through. I folded the crispy meat like a taco and filled it with onions sautéed and garlic.

I munched on the first one, enjoying the texture and flavors. As I prepared the second, I called Maveith over. He came out of the water to get his cockatrice taco, naked. “Damn, Maveith, watch where you swing that thing!” He ignored me, and the taco was gone in two bites.

“That was tasty. Can I get six more?” His deep voice asked eagerly. His statement brought back nightmares of working at a fast-food restaurant in high school, trying to keep up during the weekend lunch rush because half the staff called out sick.

“Keep washing. And no service without shoes, shorts, and a shirt!” I told the goliath. He was confused by the sudden requirements but waded back into the water. “I will let you know when it is ready.”

I made two more for myself before preparing six for Maveith. “Can I cook the greens from the onions and garlic?” I asked Maveith, who was dressing.

Maveith considered. “Onion greens are bitter, but garlic greens taste like their bulbs, and I have used them before in my cooking.” I chopped up the garlic stems and added them to the next round of stir-fry. Maveith ate nine of the tacos before he was finally full and topped them with a cup of his apple-berry jam for dessert. I had a cup of savory-sweet jam myself.

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“After we harvest as much onion and garlic as possible, we will explore the passage,” I said. There was a passage directly opposite the one where we had entered the massive domed room.

“I am hoping we never have to fight these birds again.” He crunched into his last taco. “But they are tasty.” Personally, I thought they tasted closer to turkey than chicken, but all the flavor came from the bear fat, onions, and garlic. We had only used up one of the massive breasts, too, so we had a lot of meat remaining.

As I pulled garlic and onions from the ground, I searched for the elusive worms. I even tried placing the collector on the ground in a few spots, hoping the worms were close to the surface to pull their essence. I had no luck.

Maveith found the first worm when he pulled up the waist-high grass to inspect the roots. Apparently, they nested in the roots. I felt cheated when the finger-sized worm released tiny wisps of blue smoke but did not produce an essence. I tried it on multiple worms, but it never produced an essence. So much for the collector working on every creature in a dungeon.

We washed our hands, and I stored the harvest. We filled our water from the falls and finally left the idyllic room. The corridor was the same as elsewhere, but the room fifty feet down the corridor was not. It was a square chamber, twenty feet on each side. A stone shelf was on the left and right walls, three feet deep. Across from us was the most confusing sight:. a wide stairway going up. We did not enter the room as we both pondered it.

“There is writing on the wall, Eryk,” Maveith said, pointing. It was hard to see, as it looked to have faded with time, but there was elven script above one of the recessed shelves.

“I think this is a safe room, and those are sleeping alcoves. Otherwise, the dungeon would have erased the writing on the wall.” I stepped into the room, trusting my instincts. Nothing leaped out to attack me, and I cautiously approached the writing. It was in elven script.

“It is a safe room,” I said to the relieved Maveith, who joined me. “It is going to take me a little while to decipher this. Do you want the dreamscape amulet?”

“I would be grateful for it, yes,” his deep voice intoned.

While Maveith made himself comfortable in the other alcove with the dreamscape amulet, I translated the ancient writing. Maveith soon started sleeping deeply, and I slowly figured things out.

The script indicated our location: we. were on the third level of the labyrinth in a special series of rooms. It warned of the cockatrices, fire bear, and shapeshifters. The dark room was the real prize in the corner of this dungeon, as it contained silver ore with trace amounts of mithril. Apparently, there were better places to mine mithril, as this was not a popular path due to the cockatrices and greater doppelgangers guarding it.

There was no reference to what was at the top of the stairs. My curiosity got the better of me. I would climb the stairs and check. Maybe there was another safe room at the top. The stairs corkscrewed as I climbed, and I counted the steps. It seemed to go on forever, and I worried I might not be back before Maveith woke.

I assumed I was heading toward the second layer of the labyrinth and getting closer to the others from the company. Perhaps the rooms on the second layer would not be as dangerous. I reached the top of the stairs and did not like what I found: an. oval chamber with a glass floor where giant eels swam underneath. No, it was not glass; it was ice. This room was a skating rink. There were two exits, though. The question was whether the eels were the monsters or if they were what the guardian ate.

I studied the room, but the only activity seemed to be under the ice. I was about to leave when movement on the ceiling caught my eye. The body of something had blended in nearly perfectly. The creature gave up hiding and dropped to the ice as I focused on it. Six thick legs, ending in terrible claws, scratched the glass-like ice, marring the surface and throwing chunks. The dark blue lizard-like creature was larger than a horse and growled at me, clearly unhappy with my presence.

It paced on the ice, its claws ripping up chunks as it went. I watched in horrific fascination, as if I were at a zoo and perfectly safe on the other side of the bars.

After twenty minutes of prancing for me, the muscular creature burrowed into the ice in seconds. I could see it under the ice hunting the large eels. It was not long before it scored a victory and burst out of the ice at a different spot from where it had entered. The ice appeared to be about six inches thick from the chunks that had been washed across the rink. I was curious about how the chamber was reset to make the surface of the ice smooth, but I needed to get back to Maveith. If only one creature existed in this chamber, then it should not be too difficult.

Maveith was still sleeping when I returned down the two hundred and six steps to the safe room. When Maveith woke, we needed to make a big decision. Would we leave this part of the dungeon with the familiar monsters and rooms, or would we go to the second layer and explore unknown threats while attempting to find the others?

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