Well, Someone Has To Touch It

“Touch it.”

“Fuck you, you touch it.”

“You’re the mage, what the hell did we bring you here for if you won’t touch things?”

“Idiot, my job is to fix it when you touch things.”

Lester and Sadie continued back and forth, while the rest of the crew grew bored. An argument as old as time, at least it felt that way to Freya as she fought the urge to claw her eyes out.

As Sadie whacked Lester on the ass with her staff, apparently a highly tuned, complex, magical artifact with all the functionality of a paddle, Patch flopped down next to Freya with a sigh. The man jangled as he walked, strapped with so many trinkets and tools, but he seemed to think he had the ability to sneak.

“Did I startle you Freya?” He wiggled what was left of his eyebrows - one of his experiments had burned them off when they first broke into the Archive.

“You couldn’t sneak up on a deaf man in a coma, Patch.” She looked at him and saw the idiot pulling those big puppy dog eyes that he always knew worked on her. Freya rolled her eyes, “Well, maybe if they were in a coma.”

Happy with that, the fixer put his arm around her, carefully avoiding the bandolier of knives and throwing daggers wrapping themselves around Freya. Ignoring her scowl, he motioned back to Cassie and Nyla, who were keeping an eye on the tunnel they had just cleared. Hopefully there’d be no more puppets, but you never knew. Difficult to tell when dead things die.

Patch explained, “Care to join our little bet? Cassie thinks Lester will touch it, I think Sadie will.” Freya looked on as the mage and brute continued arguing. It hadn’t really gone beyond ‘fuck you, no fuck you’.

Carefully, Freya scratched her face with her clawed gauntlet. It wasn’t really that good for fighting, but it could hit the spot just right when the humidity in these places made her skin dry. “Who did Nyla pick?”

Patch laughed, “She said to go with whoever you pick.”

“That bitch, always copying me.”

“I mean, weren’t you going to-” Patch’s argument died down to a whisper when Freya growled at him.

Sadie was now motioning to the glowing runes which surrounded the next passageway. “Can you read ancient Arthian? Cause I can’t, and I speak more languages than you can count to. Touching this is the equivalent of standing naked in a lightning storm with a metal rod tied to your pecker!”

There was a small silence before Lester responded, “So why should I fucking touch it?”

“Because someone has to and you’ve got cock for brains, so you have spare to lose!”

That started the argument off on a tangent about cock, lighting rods and where Sadie could stick her metal shaft. They hadn’t had an argument like this since…

…well since three chambers ago when Orson exploded. Freya thought she still had some of him in her hair. Greasy bastard was going to ruin her curls. Freya leaned back against the rock of the cavern, shooting a meaningful glance toward Nyla, “I think Sadie will touch it. Lester usually bullies enough to get his way.”

Patch nodded, and Nyla spoke up from the cavern mouth, “I choose Lester then.”

“You bitch, you only chose that to spite me,” Freya had stood up, long, curved daggers in her hands. Nyla had turned around now, an arrow still drawn, scowling at Freya.

“Shut up, both of you. Or Cassie will cry.”

Now, Rovik, he could sneak up on someone. Freya gave a high pitched yelp, as did Nyla. And Patch. All three turned on the thief, wrapped in tight fitting black leather. In unison, Nyla and Freya said, “Where the fuck have you been? Stop copying me!”

Ignoring the dagger stares between the two ladies, Rovik shrugged, “Exploring. It’s a couple chambers up.”

That stopped everyone. Even Lester released Sadie from her headlock. The big man spoke up, “What do you mean ‘couple chambers’? How’d you get through the glowing pictures?”

“... Runes, you lumox,” muttered Saide. She was ignored.

Rovik pointed to the little pond of murky water that was in the corner of the room. “It’s a pond, with a tunnel underneath. While you all dealt with the puppets, I scouted ahead. You know, my job? Like how Lester’s job is to touch things?” That earned a laugh of victory from Sadie.

Cassie finally came to join the group, it was rare for a Zealot to join the guild, but for some reason the girl had dropped out of the priesthood. She looked at the water and at Rovik, who Freya finally noticed was dripping wet. They all probably should have noticed that. Cassie asked, “Does that mean we’ll have to get wet? My robe doesn’t do very well in the water. I’d hate to slow us all down.” Her voice sounded like a little girl being told she couldn’t play in the park due to rain. It grated on Freya.

Rovik looked awkwardly around the room at that, which is when Freya noticed the other thing they had missed, “Rovik, where’s Lila?” The thief gave the low whistle he always gave when someone was dead. Patch threw his arms up in the air and Lester began cursing up a storm.

Cassie’s eyes became watery as she frantically asked, “Why did you do that? What does that mean?”

“Good job Rovik, now she will start crying again,” Nyla was unimpressed. She turned to the Zealot, and put a hand on her shoulder, “He means the girl is dead, Cassie. Something beyond must’ve got her, and made our little sneak here shit his tight fitting breeches and flee.”

Cassie burst into tears, great wracking heaps, and reached out for a hug from Nyla, who went, “What the fuck are you doing? Don’t hug me,” before shoving the crying girl on her ass.

Everyone looked sheepishly around as the Zealot wept on the floor, no one really wanted to get her snot and tears on their fine armour or clothes. Speaking over the sobs, Freya questioned Rovik, “so, what the fuck happened? How’d Lila die?”

He winced, “there were puppets in the chamber. We fought our way through that, feeling a little rough by the time we got to the corridor leading to it. Can’t miss the thing really, glowing green and all evil like. So, we go for it. I’m trying to go slow, feel the place out. Seen enough traps tear people to shreds to know no corridor is safe. Unless Lester is around to touch things.” Another laugh from Sadie, while Lester grumbled.

“So, I’m tapping and feeling and looking. Girl didn’t like that, braced herself and thought she could leap the whole length of the corridor. And damned if she didn’t nearly do it. Powerful legs, magical boots, gives her a big jump.”

“So, what happened?” Freya asked, cutting off Nyla from asking the same thing.

Rovik shrugged, “There was a roof. Cracked her fucking head on the ceiling, landed on the floor, set off a bunch of bloody runes.”

“She musta hit her head pretty hard to kill her.” Lester sounded nearly impressed.

“Well, weren’t the crack that killed her,” Rovik spat on the floor, “it was the Nagas.”

That got even Cassie to stop crying. Sadie pushed her way through, using her finely crafted, uniquely attuned wizard staff as a club to hit Lester in ear, “Did you say Nagas, as in, multiple Naga?”

“I believe I did.”

“So, just to check, there are multiple, which means more than one, giant elemental spewing serpents, writhing through the tunnels ahead of us?”

Rovik turned a dead eyed stare on to the wizard, “Well, it took at least two to tear Lila in half, and a third to come after me. So, yes. There’s at least three.”

“Shit,” Sadie said, “shit shit shit shit.”

The staff, carved from a thousand year old tree felled by a lightning storm, clanged to the floor as Sadie threw it in a tantrum. She spun around looking at the rest of the team, “We have got to get out of here. We’re a bloody silver ranked team, with no experience together, and three Nagas is at least a gold level threat.”

Freya was inclined to agree, and was about to say as much when Patch interrupted, “Erm… who was watching the entrance?”

Everyone spun, to see a horde of shambling dead, corpse puppets animated by twisted magic, had blocked the exit and were coming to eat the poor guildmates. Now, everyone spun on Nyla, who was frantically notching an arrow and firing into the advancing horde.

Picking Cassie up off the floor, Rovik shouted to Freya before she could dive into the pond, “Nagas! One followed me in there, could be on the other side of a narrow tunnel!”

“When were you going to mention that?”

“About now.”

She didn’t have time to curse at him, puppets were swarming them so Freya had to spend precious swearing time throwing knives into necks, hoping to sever the spine. Fucking things wouldn’t drop otherwise.

Nyla had drawn her long knives, prompting Freya to do the same. The puppets were too close for arrows and Sadie was frantically casting wards and spells to try and figure out what the runes did.

As Nyla and Freya hacked at necks, avoiding the grasping hands and teeth of the dead, they heard Patch give a shout. They both leapt to tackle the other to the floor, resulting in an awkward mid air hug, before landing winded on the stone floor. While trying to get their breath back, a small bauble sailed past their heads, exploding into flame in the depths of the horde.

“I hate when he does that, the smell sticks to me,” Nyla complained as she helped Freya up. It gave them a little respite, but dead things seemed less bothered about burning than living things. Freya wished it had been Snickets or Goblins. Those hated burning.

“Where’s our divine retribution?” Freya shouted back, seeing Rovik still trying to calm Cassie down. He made a hacking motion at his neck, telling Freya it was a no-go.

Nyla was equally unimpressed, “What good is a bloody Zealot that can only reach God if she’s happy!?”

“Apparently, she’s very powerful - they almost put her straight to Gold.”

“Well, she seems fucking great so far.”

As they hacked and shoved the puppets back, they heard a curse and then an explosion behind them. Patch had messed up his mix. Rovik was cursing now, “Why would you make it do that?”

Patch seemed embarrassed, “Well, on them, with their leathery skin-”

“For fuck sake, you’re the worst fixer I’ve ever worked with.”

“What about when Salem blew both her legs off shoeing that horse?”

“She had clothes on!”

Neither Freya or Nyla wanted to look behind them when they heard that, instead focussing on the screaming horrors before them. Even as their paper dry skin burned, and the eyes melted out of their heads, it was better than seeing Patch naked.

Another shout, this one from Sadie, which told Nyla and Freya to dive out of the way. They did not try to tackle each other this time. A screaming bolt of lightning tore down the path and evaporated the first few rows of puppets. Sadly, it seemed their supply was at an all time high.

However, it did give them space for Nyla to start a ranged assault again, joined by a faintly sniffling Cassie who said, “Well, seeing Patch do that definitely gave me a bit of a chuckle, let's see what Sekorath thinks of that.”

Shining golden light spilled from her hands, covering Nyla, healing minor scrapes and coating her arrows in divine power. When an arrow hit one of the puppets, it exploded with such force that it would take out another dozen nearby.

Freya ignored Rovik trying to give Patch some dignity and joined Lester and Sadie who were, still, arguing.

“Lester, I just need you to tap the bloody rune, third up on the left side. I’ve worked it out, and that should be the key.”

“If you’re so confident, why aren’t you touching it?”

“Because it’s your bloody job!”

Freya could not take it anymore. She snapped her fingers at the wizard, “You got another one of those thunder bolts in you?”

“It’s a lightning bolt actually, thunder is the sound and-”

“I don’t give a shit. We need to kill more things.” Freya pointed back behind her, where Nyla, even powered by Cassie's strange God, was on the backfoot. Rovik was tying spare bits of cloth around a naked Patch, who was still mixing vials on his bandolier, throwing them into the crowd of undead occasionally. It seemed that the effects were as much of a surprise to him as anyone else.

As one vial landed and caused several of the puppets to flash freeze, Sadie shook her head, “I’ve channeled a lot today and we still need to deal with the Nagas on the other side. If they can handle it, I don’t want to push myself.”

“That’s always your bloody excuse!”

“It’s true, you do not want to see a wizard who is overchannelled. Bad things happen.”

A scream from behind them, followed by Nyla loudly cursing. Seems one of Patch’s vials landed too close to Cassie. The Zealot had three inches of stone spike in her leg. While it had pincushioned another dosen puppets, it also meant a loss of fire power. Rovik hit the fixer upside the head.

Sadie turned to Lester, “Look you big oaf, touch that fucking rune right now, or I will shove this staff so far up your ass, when I cast it will come out of your mouth!” Lester finally seemed to relent, seeing the horde of puppets getting ever closer. He touched the rune.

Several things then happened at once.

Nyla yanked Cassie off the spike, throwing the Zealot to Patch and Rovik.

Lester touched the third rune from the bottom.

A puppet grabbed Nyla’s hair, which she kept long like Freya’s, and dragged her to the floor.

As Nyla started to scream, the puppets tearing her apart, Sadie said, “No, the fucking left.”

Lester exploded, and Freya was suddenly covered in guts for the second time that day.

While Cassie screamed for them to help Nyla, and Freya screamed because she could taste Lester, Sadie screamed for everyone to “Run, fucking run, right fucking now.”

Blood blind, Freya tried to figure out which scream to stumble toward. Someone bumped into her, and then another person, and suddenly there was more screaming because they were sliding down a tunnel.

Freya landed with a wet thump, next to a crumpled Sadie, clutching her staff. Rovik was next, somehow overshooting both of them and landing on his feet after a flip in the air. Just in time for Patch to rocket straight into him and send them both over. Cassie brought up the rear, landing next to Freya. Snot and tears had caused the dirt of the slope to stick to her face. Freya thought it an improvement, the girl was usually too pretty for guild work.

For a moment, they all lay there, miles underground, in the heart of the Archive. A ten person team, now down to half its number. Though in fairness, Calder had died before they even got here. Fucking idiot couldn’t ride a horse to save his life.

“This is going pretty well.”

“Shut up Patch,” Freya felt a little pang that Nyla hadn’t copied her.

The fixer got up, a makeshift skirt barely hiding his sin from the world, “Well, I mean, it's just clear that this should be a gold mission, at least. Usually when that happens, everyone gets wiped out immediately, we’re basically there!”

“Does this happen often?” Cassie sounded like a kicked puppy.

Rovik snorted, “More than it bloody should. Clerks get paid too much for the shit job they do vetting these things.”

Sadie sighed, wiping Lester off her staff, “We should’ve known an Archive job, especially one to steal this would be higher ranked. As usual, we’re all too busy chasing the bounty to care.” Freya was inclined to agree. As she was getting up, she noticed she had lost one of her claw gauntlets at some point. That was a matching set! And hard to find! Sighing, she turned to the others, “Well, we’re here. Might as well finish the whole thing off. Not like we can get out of here anyway.”

That statement was not met with the gruff, but determined, rallying of the team she had expected. Instead, Sadie muttered, “Fuck that.”

Freya sighed, “That’s not a very winning attitude, Sadie.”

“Fuck off Freya, we’ve got to get through three bloody Nagas to get the damn phalectary.”

“They might not be that bad, did you get their elements, Rovik?”

The thief scratched at his stubble, “One’s water, one might be acid. The last one was red. Could be fire?” Freya did not like that ‘could be’ on the fire one. Still, what else could it be? Fire was always red with these things.

Cassie stood up now, reminding everyone that she was nearly seven feet tall when she wasn’t stooping. Her blonde hair, currently streaked with mud, tumbled down in waves to knees. Her blue eyes were tinged red, and puffy, from all the crying. With a steadying breath, she forced a smile and said, “This is where we prove our stuff, friends! I’ll not have us lose hope now, Sekorath would not be pleased!”

Without waiting, she strutted off down the tunnel, leaving the others feeling a little embarrassed.

As they followed after her, Patch turned to Freya, “Don’t forget, you lost the bet - you owe me a bit of your share.” Freya stared incredulously at the fixer. He just wiggled his eyebrows and moved past her.

Soon, they found themselves at the end of a long tunnel, a blood splatter ominously at the far end, and a glowing green room just passed that.

“Wow, she did make it far.” Patch was clearly impressed.

Sadie was nervous, whipping her head back and forth, “Well good for her, but I’m more concerned about the lack of Nagas.”

Rovik shrugged, “Maybe they got bored? They’re snakes, not like they can be trained to stay near the glowing box.”

Cassie seemed to take that as a sign, and strode forward down the heavily trapped hallway. The others flinched back, surprised when nothing exploded her, or impaled her, or set her on fire. Freya may have even been a little disappointed.

Rovik shrugged, and followed. When the Nagas chased him, they must’ve set off all the other traps and whoever reset them hadn’t done so yet. Freya had always wondered who reset these things. Sadie claimed some powerful wizards, like the one who owned the Archive, could employ familiars to do it. Freya had said that sounded like he had a janitor. Sadie had then hit her with the staff that had been passed down for over five generations of wizards.

After a rather anticlimactic walk, the guildmates reached the phalectary. A box, bigger than Freya’s head, sat on a plinth of obsidian, carved to look like many screaming faces. The box itself glowed sickly green and, peering into it, one could see the swirling mist of an arch mage’s soul.

Patch whistled, “Do we know which one it is?”

“Well, it has to be one of the Apostates. Look at the plinth.” Sadie knocked the fine stone with her staff.

“Really? The plinth? Aren’t all the Apostates accounted for? Didn’t some king eat them all?”

“Do you mean Sydine the Deceiver? He released them, didn’t eat them. They all got captured again.”

As usual, Rovik lost patience first, “Does any of this matter?”

He reached for the box.

Everyone braced for all hell to break loose.

It did not. Hell barely knocked at the door. The box simply fell into Rovik’s hands, and he strapped it to his waist with some of his many belts and ropes. Freya swore one of them was velvet and not for thieving.

Cautiously, the party looked around, expecting some terrible thing to leap out at them. Nothing. Rovik shrugged at the others, and made for the door. As he went back into the entrance, a flash of red knocked him back into the chamber with the others.

As the thief crumbled against the pillar, Cassie screamed. The Naga’s had not gone, it seemed they had been hidden somehow and were now blocking the door. Freya could see a flash of scarlet scales, though a face of gleaming violet filled the doorway.

The Naga screamed, and a flood of water smashed into the guildmates. Freya screamed, her other claw wretched from her hand. She was never going to find those again. This job just kept getting worse.

Sadie seemed to be chanting, and when her staff began to crackle, Freya screamed, “We’re in the water! Don’t bloody-”

Her whole body convulsed. She could see Patch next to her wanting to scream as well. The lighting rocketed through the water, and down to the Naga. There was a wave of pressure as the water suddenly evaporated, and the water Naga was sent reeling back.

Freya, smoking slightly, turned to Sadie, whose eyes had rolled back into her head, “Hey, wake up, what the fuck were you thinking?”

Patch had to drag Freya off the wizard, “Freya, she’s on the cusp of overchannelling. Leave her. She gave us time. I need you and Cassie to keep them busy.”

“Oh sure, I’ll just go out there and do the dance of feathers to distract three-”

“Two.”

“- not helpful Cassie, two Nagas? Wait, two? Where’s the last one?”

Rovik grunted from the floor, “You’re not gonna like the answer to that.”

Then, a twenty foot long green serpent fell from the ceiling of the chamber, crushing the plinth flat, along with Rovik’s legs. The thief screamed, but fished out the phalectary and threw it to Freya. She caught it with her free hand by one of the handles, then turned to Cassie.

“Right, come on, we gotta go.”

“But Rovik…”

As she said that, the Naga spewed acid, melting the skin off Rovik’s face before he could even scream. Freya dragged Cassie away, “I don’t think we need to worry about that right now.”

Cassie did not seem upset by that, instead, she giggled slightly and began to glow, “Very well, then I shall do as Patch asked.”

“Really? Now? You’re happy now?”

“Well, Sekorath is a God of Death!”

“... What?”

She had no time to question it, Cassie hummed with divine energy and launched herself at the acid Naga. Divine strength let her wrestle with it, and Freya could barely tear herself away, as she went to face the other two, dropping Sadie unceremoniously on the floor.

Sadie had done good work, even if it had fried Freya’s eyebrows off. The water Naga was still reeling. She turned, dagger in one hand, the other ready with throwing knives to skewer the fire Naga. Its head touched the ceiling of the tunnel and, as Freya leapt out, it seemed to smile and bare the viscous foot long fangs in its head.

Freya braced as the thing’s mouth opened wide, ready to dive out of the way of the gout of flame.

The Naga did not fire flame at her. Instead, it retched, and a flood of blood smashed Freya into the wall, making her stomach curl. The fucking thing was a blood Naga?! Why would that be a thing?!

Peeling herself off the wall, Freya fought the nausea in her stomach to skid around and throw knives at the horror. The blood coating the floor now at least gave her an extra bit of speed, which she could just about utilise. The Naga sent spurt after spurt of blood at her. She got close, trying to goad it into diving at her.

There! It thought it could bite her. It lunged and Freya slammed herself into the left wall, lashing out with a dagger and taking it in the eye. It thrashed and screamed, giving Freya the chance to aim at its brain.

Then, the water Naga slammed its tail into her, breaking a rib and knocking her dagger out of her hand. All she had done today was lose weapons.

Ducking another tail strike, and skidding through congealing blood under the thrashing red snake, Freya threw knife after knife at the water Naga. None landed. It opened its mouth to let out another flood and Freya braced herself.

The impact came from behind. Like an arrow punched into her spine. She looked and Cassie, still radiating divine energy, had picked both Freya and Sadie up and was running through the Naga with shocking speed.

“What are you doing?”

“Patch said to run, and quick.”

“Where is-”

The explosion sent them all the way to the end of the tunnel. Cassie did her best, but she slammed into the ground and the three guildmates went sprawling. Smoke of all colours billowed out of the tunnel. There was still rumbling and smaller explosions happening, but it was all obscured by orange, purple and yellow smoke.

Freya screamed out, “Patch!” The other’s had been hard, but it was the business. Patch though, he was like a brother to her. They always did missions together, both always promised to make it back. She wasn’t sure if she even wanted to get out of here if Patch wasn’t coming along.

A form coalesced out of the smoke. At first it seemed huge, but the smoke and continuing explosions obscured and shifted it. Soon, a naked, smoking, Patch was sprinting out of the tunnel, yelling “Keep running! Two are still alive!”

He sprinted past the three of them, barely stopping to shout his warning. Freya was glad he was alive, relief making it easy to pull Cassie up and help her carry Sadie. Patch was alive and it meant that later, Freya could kill him for pulling that shit.

They ran down tunnels that Freya hadn’t seen before, screeching Naga behind them. She had no idea how close they were, because she refused to look. Instead, Freya focused on the fixer’s smoking bare ass, willing herself to keep running so that she could eventually kick it.

One of the Nagas took a corner too sharply, and smashed through the tunnel wall, sending it into some other horror of the archive. There was a primal scream from some other creature, then the sound of battle.

Freya really hoped the naga that just died was the blood one.

Her dreams were dashed as quickly as they were born when a fresh wave of blood knocked her onto her face, Cassie and Patch sprinting away.

She scrambled, turning to see the one eyed snake (she giggled to herself again) careening towards her, jaw stretched wide.

Patting herself down, the assassin realised she had lost all of her weapons. Somewhere along the way, the bandolier had fallen off. In desperation, she threw the only thing she had.

The phalactery of who-even-fucking-cares arced through the air and went straight down the Naga’s throat. The creature screamed, which became a strangled cry as it choked. Freya watched, panting, unable to believe her luck.

She fell to her knees as the adrenaline wore off and the last Naga slowly choked to death in front of her.

Eventually, the others came back, realising she had the payload. Sadie was back up, but woozy and using her arcane staff of reality bending power as a walking stick.

Cassie spoke first, “Well, good news, we found a clear path to the surface.”

Freya was exhausted, “What's the bad news?”

“Oh well, someone will need to crawl into the Naga and get the phylactery.”

“Not it!” Patch, Sadie and even Cassie had all spoken in unison.

Staring at the snake, preparing herself to dig into its throat, Freya watched as it vomited another wave of blood, which coated her in a fresh, disgusting layer.

“See, I still think this went well.”

Freya was going to fucking kill him.