Page 76 of The Dungeon Book

“Shh!” She muffled the larger of the goblin’s mouths. The things that dwelt in the red-litten chamber were not good to wake.

“Come home,” Fuglog whispered through the smallest of his neck mouths. “There’s trouble! The Arcade’s gone! Adventurers! Adventurers came for us!”

She dragged him into a quiet corridor, and listened to his tale of horror.

Fuglog had so much so say, words came pouring out of all four of his functional mouths, and even his vestigial fifth mouth injected the occasional exclamation or wail of woe. Bait had to sift through his jabber, and what she learned was this:

The first assaults on the Dungeon had been bloody for both sides, but in the end it was the RATS who’d retreated. They’d withdrawn down the mountain. Nixie scouts in the river reported that some of the adventurers had ridden on to Dunshelm Keep in haste, no doubt bearing the spoils of this first incursion, but the others had remained in an encampment at Neb’s village until reinforcements arrived. Their adventure was not over – this was not a raid, but something more. They had returned to the Entrance Hall to mount a second assault. They were bent on clearing the Dungeon. Many Denizens had been slain. Many more taken prisoner. Clickglee and a handful of other goblins had holed up in a hole on the Sixth, but few of the other denizens of the upper level had escaped.

“Only-Sister?” asked Bait.

“In chains, and muzzled, and her tail docked,” said Fuglog. “The human woman – they thought she was the manticore’s prisoner. They took her too.” “She smells!” added his fifth mouth.

“And Cornish,” continued Fuglog’s first mouth. “Coronation,” offered the second. “Cornewlish,” tried the third. “Mister skull!” clarified the fourth. “His tomb’s been looted.” “Smashed.”

I am not trying to keep you in suspense. Obviously, I survived, or how else would I be here to tell this tale? If I add the occasional embellishment, it is only partly for your entertainment.

I tell it this way because I am a liar, and a scapegrace. Like the carnival barker I was, I stall, waiting for the curtain.

In the time of Yrn Kyos, the Dungeon had three underlords. As the rhyme of the Rule reminds us, Obey ye the lords of the Dungeon: gargoyle and dragon and ghast/ And trouble ye not the Master, he who was first here and last.

The dragon was gone – and anyway, if we’re being precise about such matters, the dragon referenced in the rhyme was not Nithscalpa, but his dam. The only gargoyle left was Old Throte, and he was bound to the Tower, and would not leave it easily. And, of course, there had been no Master since Orphir’s departure for sunnier climes.

That left the ghast.

Bait went to the ghast.

*

In all her years in the Dungeon she’d never dared enter those halls claimed by the ghast. I had never gone there either. Not while I was alive, not while I was not. Even when I was Master, I told myself that some mysteries were best left unplumbed. Bait had skirted round them, mapped their boundaries, scoured the corridors for signs of hoofprints. She’d taken notes in her book, but black spores infested the pages, and she’d torn them out before the mould spread.

We had taught her to survive in the Dungeon, and that means caution. Only a fool – or an adventurer – delves beyond their level.

Now she walked amid fruiting bodies and strange growths sprouting over every surface. Glowing striated bands on the skin of certain overlarge mushrooms filled the halls with unearthly light. The air thick with spores, hot like fever. Faces leered from the fungal murk, and she could not tell if they were being digested or being born.

Bait raised her voice and recited the formal language I’d taught her.

“I ask for permission to enter this lair. I promise not to hunt without your leave, or take any treasure, or do anything except talk to ghast.”

One of the faces spoke. “He is already here.”

The ghast’s long slimy fingers settled on Bait’s shoulders from behind. She’d not heard the ghast sneak up behind her – and she knew that if those fingers touched her bare flesh she’d be dissolved. Only a few rags and the mercy of the ghast lay between Bait and death.

“Human child,” globbered the ghast, “you should not be here.”

Slowly, but insistently, Bait began to turn around. The ghast had to kill her or release her, and she’d entered his lair under the protection of the Rules.

He released her.

She looked up at him.

“I want to talk to you.”

His voice was like slugs dragged across sharp rocks. “No one wishes to talk to me.”

“The Dungeon’s under attack,” she insisted. “Humans, from the surface. Lots of them. And they know our ways. They’re like a monster you can’t hurt – like their head and all the vital organs are safe up on the surface, and it’s sending these iron tentacles down to hunt us. Break one and it grows more.”

“But they are human still. The Master bound me to watch over the lower levels. No living humans have come here. Except you.” The ghast licked his fingers, as if he could taste some quality about her. “What are you, child?”