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Pakani hissed as his foot touched ice-hardened earth. Bragden stepped forward, took a breath to speak, and made it as far as, "Ye should -" before a thunder-like CRACK! interrupted the dwarf. The ground underfoot was not iced over: It was pure ice, and then, it wasn't underfoot at all.
The duo hit more ice, and rocks, and a second later more rocks and more ice hit them from above as the cave-in continued. With curses and winces they jumped out of the way. With that was the last of the fresh air from the forest above, chill as it was, it carried the hints of dormant life, and distant oceans. Here Pakani wrinkled his nose at the cavern's deep, stale scent.
"Need a light, Pecan," Bragden grunted.
The dwarf drew something out of his pack, and dry wood, old cloth, and grease smells interjected themselves under Pakani's nose. He snorted and lit the torch before pulling his head back, tilting his chin up to sniff the air more deeply. Fresh smoke (kind of bacony) from the torch - no, past that. The cave itself, the exhalations of the tunnels ahead, down, down -
down where you never feel sunlight again
- he caught the musty, rotten scent of -
"...Nerubians. Undead. Of course."
"O' course."
"I don't... think we should fight them down here in their own territory," Pakani said uneasily. "Let's get back up."
"Nae light reachin' us here. C'mon, if Nerubians use this cave, they've got their own way back up."
Bragden started forward. Pakani followed with increasing unease. The floor sloped downward, taking them further from the world above. The vast echo of the open chamber disappeared as the ceiling and walls closed in on them. While the dwarf had no issues, Pakani soon had very little space left to maneuver. All sense of life faded away, all dim sounds of wind or dripping water. A void of life, a void a sound, a void of vision, voids within voids, a world of nothing but numbingly cold stone in all directions -
"Pecan, ye're breathin' like a racin' ram back there. Ye smell somethin' new?"
"What? No - No, I just - Let's keep moving."
Bragden paused for a second or two before walking again. Pakani focused on the sound of the warrior's shifting armor. And inside, the warrior's aura, a constitution like an ox, with a healthy heart at the prime of his life. Before long, though, new presences encroached on Pakani's senses. He clicked his tongue, signalling Bragden to stop and hold while the healer concentrated.
Twitching, vile Nerubians skirted hither and thither in a corridor nearby. Their auras felt inside-out, like violins played backwards, or an afterimage after staring at a lamp. The smell ahead was stronger, a rot left out so long it couldn't even decay anymore, only go stale. The Scourge could never rot properly - they took the life out of the world, and never gave it back.
Pakani lowered his head to speak quietly to Bragden. "They're close. The next room."
"Aye," the dwarf whispered back, and drew a sword.
The pair crept closely by the wall, and then in wordless unison burst through to the chamber beyond. Nerubians sputtered their calls of alarm as Bragden charged. Chitin splintered with the warrior's powerful blade strikes. Claws scrabbled against his armor. From above, the leathery flap of many wings awoke and converged on the fight. Pakani held back, funneling magic at Bragden, first surrounding the dwarf with a shielding bubble and bolstering energy.
As usual, once they realized how he aided the warrior, the Nerubians shifted attention to Pakani. He knew it once the clicking, scraping feet started clicking and scraping in his direction. He never gave them a chance to get close, as he seared them with blasts of pure fire. They recoiled, screeching, and Bragden whirled to cut them down in their distraction.
More kept coming, from several directions. Pakani's senses were soon getting jumbled, overwhelmed by too many fast-moving auras and too many noises to track. A mass of this many common skitterers, flyers, and soldiers couldn't go unnoticed for long by the enemy, either.
"Braggs! We should -" he started, and something struck him in the face and spun him aside. The wound burned like frosbite and smelled like petroleum.
Now Pakani heard the rasping incantations of the spell-spinners at the back, on the far side of the throng. "Casters!" he warned.
"I see 'em!" Bragden said. "Keep shieldin'!"
Pakani energized the shield again, just as another shadowbolt hit him. Bragden moved toward the casters, chopping his way through the littler monsters like a lumberjack splitting logs. Pakani shuffled forth to follow, but a fresh line of skitterers intercepted, cutting him off. He growled and set them aflame - and in his distraction, the duo was separated.
He made to jog forward in the same instant ropes of webbing shot from another distant foe. His feet were glued to the floor. He shouted out as more webbing slammed into him like a sticky weighted net, wrapping itself around him with its own inertia.
- learn to obey or you'll never see sunlight -
Down, down, far down, immobilized, chained, cut off, outnumbered, enslaved -
His breath froze in his throat, heart leaping, as a wave of panic hit him with the sudden force of a boulder. The (un)living Nerubians assaulted his prone form with tooth and claw. For several dreadful moments he couldn't move - not just the webbing, but his own mind, forgetting which cave and which enemy was really there.
Head down, whelp! Hold your tongue or I'll cut it off!
A chattering voice loomed near, uttering like a clogged brook. Another spell, a finishing spell this time. Head down! Terrible instinct sought to keep him pinned, instinct ingrained from terrible years, of years past - But never so long they were never right now and right here, all over again.
Pure terror won out, and for once served him well. In a sudden surge of panic-driven strength, he tore half-free of the webbing and reached up to seize the caster. Silk cloth ripped. Fragile shoulders - far too many - snapped. Foul-smelling coagulant oozed from the Nerubian's crackling shell. The caster's rasp stuttered, and the building energy popped and fizzled out as its concentration broke. Pakani entirely engulfed the monster in fire. It shrieked like a winter gale. His fingers curled into whatever part of its body he could find, and he tore, tossing limbs wide.
He didn't stop swinging after it slumped dead at his feet. He didn't stop flinging fire when he couldn't smell anything new to burn. The panic kept coming in waves, as his awareness zeroed in on the deep darkness of the cave (blinder than blind) and the webbing still binding him to the floor. Fear roared in his ears, in his blood. He had to get out. He had to get out, he had to get out, I have to get out -
"Pecan!" Bragden was there now, but Bragden who?
"GET ME OUT!" Pakani shouted shrilly.
"Ye just hold still an' I'll -"
Pakani couldn't understand. He flailed and flamed until he freed himself from the floor. Then he turned in his panic to try to find the exit, but he couldn't tell anymore which way to go, or how far the walls had gone, he was adrift in this emptiness and the silence was crushing down on him, he could still feel chains on his throat. He flung himself at the dark to find anything but corpses around him, grabbing at cold air and clawing at the stone.
"- over! It's over, Pecan, it's over, ye're out!"
"No! We can't get out! Where's - oh gods, where - I have to get out!"
"Ye are!" Bragden's hand set firmly on the mender. "Ye nae there anymore, ye're here!"
Pakani held still (but trembling), trying hard to focus on the dwarf's words through the fog that captured his mind. Here, not there. Here, not there...
"They're all dead, Pecan. These ones, an' those ones ye're rememberin'. Ye're free an' safe as me now."
The panic released him like a broken cord at last. As his mind snapped back to reality, he slumped, exhausted in the wake of it, like a tide had come in and swept out his muscles to sea. He became aware of the revolting smells of the room again. Freezing cold crept up his legs. Present-day asserted itself, for good and ill.
"C'mon," Bragden said. "I saw a ramp goin' up."
He guided Pakani to the surface. A snowy wind whispered by. Muted sunlight offered feeble warmth. Leafless trees rattled. Pakani breathed in, deeply, and let it out slowly.
Once they got safely clear of the cavern entrance and found a spot to make camp, Pakani finally spoke again.
"I'm sorry," he said. "Again."
"Och, Pecan... We've all got our own burrs in our beards. Nae apologize, ye did nae harm."
"But I shouldn't -" Pakani clutched his face in frustration. "I'm not supposed to be like this! Gods, how weak, and you could have died -"
"Shut it! I didnae die, an' even if I did, I wouldnae blame ye! Nae mortal's supposed tae be terrorized an' traumatized, but we all got slapped by this son-of-a-bitch life whether we like it or nae!"
"But I'm not -"
"Pecan, I said shut it." The dwarf's words were hard, but his tone was soft. "I still cry over me dead gryphon an' tha lass who broke me heart, an' those are kittens for problems next tae yours. Ye never judge me for me ailin', an' I'm nae goin' to judge ye either."
Pakani was quiet for a long moment, head hanging. "But it's been so long. Why... Why can't I just get over it yet?"
"Whoever put those exact words in yer head should kiss a ruttin' moonkin," Bragden grunted. "Ye nae 'just get over' things, nae matter who ye are."
Pakani managed a faint smile. "Ah, now I remember why I put up with you."
"Someone has tae! Now get some sleep, lad. Ye need it."
He never really got over it, but he got a little closer every year. Still never liked caves, though.