“What’s going on?” Mycah asked breathlessly. He still sounded dazed. “What happened?”

“I told you something was wrong with your mage.” Nil said, huffing along beside him. “Whatever is happening, it’s obviously your fault!”

Philbey shook his head. “No, no way Arlum could do something like this.” He looked over his shoulder. “It has to be this place, like he was saying. Gods, Arl…”

With her long legs and natural agility, Niven was the first to reach the end of the hall. She paused for a fraction of a second, leaning through the doorway to confirm that the narrow path was as they had left it, then darted through without a look back. 

“Niv, hey! Wait!” Philbey shouted after her. 

“No point.” Mycah said grimly. He hazarded a look over his shoulder; the flesh was almost nipping at their heels now, and still gaining despite their pace. “She’ll leave us all for dead if we let her. Keep moving!”

One by one, the party skidded to a near halt at the doorway – first Mycah and Philbey, then Dahlia and Nil close behind – and stepped carefully out onto the walkway, unable to maintain their speed while maneuvering the treacherous path. Up ahead, Niven was almost to the far end of the chamber. The elf moved with a tightrope walker’s confidence, barely looking down as she skimmed over the pit at almost a full run.

“Forget about her.” Philbey said. “Just keep your eyes on your feet and keep moving, we’ll make it through this.”

For a while, he was right. The four moved at a brisk, steady pace, slowly but surely tracing the walkway’s random turns and switchbacks. Behind them, the transformation flowed through the doorway and began to spread across the walls on either side. 

Nil suddenly lifted her chin, sniffing the air. “Do any of you smell that?”

The others followed suit, only to shake their heads or otherwise react with confusion. 

“I don’t smell anything.” Mycah said. “What are you on about, gob?”

Something in the pit below caught the corner of Nil’s eye and she leaned over, peering into the darkness just beneath their feet. Another sniff – an acrid, caustic scent wafted up to meet her nostrils, even more noticeable this time. And there it was again – a glint, a sliver of a shine as something far below caught their torchlight. Something that was moving. 

“Wait.” Philbey’s head popped up. “No, I smell it now. Is that – eugh, what is that?”

Realization hit Nil like a puzzle piece clicking into place. She could see it more clearly now – an amorphous glittering within the blackness, shifting and flowing not like something living, but like a liquid. At the same moment, the nature of the stench became clear. 

Stomach acid. The pit was steadily filling with it. 

That was not all. The movement Nil noticed before had not been only the shifting of liquid – there was something else, something wriggling and squirming just under the surface, lapping at the walls and the base of the walkway, breaking the frothy, yellowish surface. Glistening, misshapen nodules slithered up out of the acid, ranging in size from that of her own fist to as large as an alley cat. They dragged themselves up the walls with gelatinous tentacles, with random assortments of insectile legs, or simply oozed along like slugs – to Nil’s eye they appeared less like any animal she had ever encountered in her studies and more like collections of half-developed organs. Sagging pods of liquid, wheezing lumps that inflated and deflated like lungs, lolling, filmy eyeballs staring at nothing, and all manner of features she would much rather not attempt to describe made up the menagerie of flopping horrors crawling up from the depths. 

“Faster!” Nil called out, trying not to let a rising note of panic into her tone. “We must move much faster, people!”

“What? No, we need to-” Philbey must have looked down, because his body language changed suddenly and drastically. “Gods…gods rotting, what the fuck are those?!”

“You think I know?!” Nil snapped. 

A colossal groaning filled the chamber, and the unthinkable happened; they felt the walkway shift under their feet, the slightest vibration within what should have been solid rock. Dahlia looked over her shoulder to see that the flesh had laid claim to the first twenty feet or so of the path. Given that the walkway was essentially a tall, thin wall of stone, the more it transformed the more it began to sag, deforming and folding over itself like warm taffy. This did not bode well for the parts that remained stone – stress fractures had already begun to appear along the sides of the path, showering clouds of dust into the depths. Another shudder ran through the walkway. 

The group redoubled their pace and broke into a jog, moving with just enough care to keep from taking a wrong step and plummeting into the stinking froth rising from below. This would have been difficult enough if not for the polyp-creatures oozing up onto the path from all directions, who reached out with stubby tendrils to grasp at their ankles as they passed; while not particularly quick, the creatures were numerous, and their mucous-slick bodies made navigating the thin walkway that much more perilous. Mycah kicked at one of the things, trying to knock it back into the pit – its body ruptured like an overripe fruit, coating his boot in slime and nearly causing him to slip. 

Less than a stone’s throw to the door, now – a distance made all the more aggravating by the meandering nature of the path. All around them, more and more of the chamber succumbed to the growing nightmare. Meat-rot crawled across the walls and ceiling like an arriving tide; many of the misshapen creatures crawling up from the depths had managed to make their way onto the ceiling and were beginning to hurl themselves down from above, snapping at them with stubby mandibles and needle-toothed suckers as they fell. Dahlia looked up as something that looked like a kidney sprouted over with tentacles launched itself at her face, gnashing a birdlike beak. She reached up to backhand it out of the air, popping its body in a spray of yellow ichor. 

“Don’t stop!” Mycah shouted, using the flat of his sword to slap another of the things away; it vanished into the acid at his right with a splash. “Just a little further now!”

Another abyssal moan filled the air, like the bellowing of some massive, dying beast, and the entire chamber shook with the force of an earthquake. All four dropped to their hands and knees, fighting to keep balance as the walkway attempted to shake them free. It was at this point that Nil chanced to look over her shoulder. 

Most of the room was unrecognizable now, resembling more the guts of some enormous creature than the ancient stone chamber it had been before. The ceiling had taken on a smooth pattern of scalloped ridges all down its length, pale, rubbery veins of blue and milky yellow snaking through the walls like steam pipes. An only vaguely rectangular orifice had taken the place of the door behind them, almost collapsed under the weight of drooping flesh. A similar effect spread across the beginning of the very walkway they now clung to; no longer supported by the rigidity of its own stone, the twisting wall of flesh had begun to sag to one side, rolling over on itself further with each passing second. Gravity finally had its way as Nil watched – the meat-wall reached the point of no return and folded, splashing into the acid below. 

“Oh, no.” She murmured. 

It was not a single section of the path that collapsed, of course. As a contiguous ribbon of material, the moment the first section of the walkway collapsed it began to drag the rest down with it, more and more of the walkway unspooling from its twisting track and falling away. In a few seconds, the collapse would reach the point where flesh remained stone. 

“GO!” Nil screamed. 

Meat pulled taut as, for just an instant, the transition point held back the destruction. More fractures exploded from the border, skittering across the sides of the walkway in a spray of dust. The path shifted again, violently, and an ominous grinding could be felt arising from somewhere below. 

The time for caution had passed. As one, the group scrambled to their feet and sprinted for the exit, paying only the barest heed to the polyp creatures popping and splattering underfoot. Mycah’s long stride carried him out ahead of the others; he threw himself bodily through the door, grunting in pain as his shoulder caught the edge of the portal and sent him sprawling to the floor on the other side. Dahlia followed immediately after, then Philbey, both of whom managed to trip over Mycah’s legs and fall in a heap.

A thunderous impact ran through the walkway, knocking Nil from her feet a second time. She landed painfully on one knee as the entire path canted drunkenly to one side, sending a dozen polyps shrieking and chittering back into the stinking pool beneath her; Nil’s hand shot out, grasping the uppermost edge of the platform before she could slide off to join them. She dragged herself up and over the edge until she was able to straddle it, crouching over the apex like a tiny, awkward gargoyle. Luckily, moving on all fours came as second nature to a goblin, and Nil wasted no time in scampering along even as the walkway continued to shudder and shift beneath her feet. 

The doorway was tantalizingly close now; for a tall human like Mycah, safety would have been only a few strides away. Nil swore under her breath and swatted away a wormlike polyp as it leapt toward her face, scrambling a little further before the platform jerked again and dropped a few more inches. A gasp escaped her as she hunkered down, trying to keep her balance. If she didn’t make a break for it, she wouldn’t get another chance. 

Nil gritted her teeth and pushed off on one heel, ignoring the chittering horrors snapping at her ankles. Her legs tensed, preparing to make the final leap. Almost there. Almost there. 

With a sickening lurch, the platform shifted again, and Nil felt time slow to a crawl around her. Her stomach floated, instinct chiming in to tell her what she already knew; the portal was too far. She jumped in the same instant she felt the platform fall away, reaching uselessly for the lower lip of the doorway. 

So this is how I go, she thought distantly. Hilarious. 

An iron-clad hand snapped shut around Nil’s wrist, arresting her fall with a jolt. Still in the grasp of her momentum, the goblin swung forward to smash against the stone wall. Nil’s vision blurred, air rushing from her lungs – she looked down, watching as the walkway broke into pieces and sank into the foul, steaming liquid below. 

Straining with the effort, Dahlia managed to brace her foot against the doorframe and heave the goblin up and onto solid ground. The pair collapsed against one another, gasping for air. 

“Guess that…makes us even, huh?” Dahlia said, propping herself up on her elbow and grinning. 

Nil rolled onto her back, groaning. “Not a word about this. To anyone, ever.”

“Uh, ladies?”

Philbey stood with one hand against the wall, catching his breath. He stared into the chamber they had just escaped with a haunted expression. “I’m not sure we’ve got time to celebrate just yet.”

As if to punctuate his statement, the transfiguration of flesh chose that moment to creep across the threshold. Before Nil or Dahlia even had the chance to regain their feet, the reaction had flowed across the doorway and down the hall – Nil jerked away in disgust, jumping to her feet as it passed beneath her and kept on. A low murmuring followed just after – the chittering and slithering of hundreds of polyps climbing the wall in search of prey.

“Yep, loud and clear,” Dahlia said, popping to her feet beside Nil. “Gotta keep moving.”

It immediately became apparent that running would now be a significantly trickier proposition. The transformed flesh was slick and rubbery, and soft in such a way that their feet wanted to sink in with every step – in other words, it had suddenly become much easier to lose one’s footing. Short of limb and much more naturally nimble, Nil and Philbey very quickly began to pull ahead. 

Within the first handful of steps, Dahlia’s foot came down upon a fatty nodule, sending her into a sideways cartwheel that deposited her face-first onto the floor. Scrambling to right herself, the emberling looked up to see the first wave of polyps crest the lip of the doorframe and spill into the hall. The quickest of the creatures led the pack, scuttling along on random assortments of legs that reminded Dahlia of those of spiders or centipedes. 

“Alright!” Dahlia rolled onto one knee, unslinging her hammer and pulling the shield from her back. “Looks like this is how it’s gonna have to be. Still got that sword of yours, Mycah?”

The big man paused to glance over his shoulder before staring at Dahlia, aghast. “Are you insane, girl? If you want to stay here and die, be my guest.” 

Dahlia watched, tail drooping, as Mycah dug in his heels and pushed forward, leaving her behind. 

“Oh! Uh, okay, I just – whoah!” At the last second, Dahlia used her shield to swat one of the creatures away as it launched itself at her face. It bounced off the wall with a pained squeak. “I’ll just, uh, hold the fort back here, then!”

She pushed back and onto her feet, backpedaling as another polyp leapt toward her, then another. A swing of her hammer caught one in the center of its mass, squashing it like a jelly-filled pastry; another bounced ineffectually off of her left pauldron; Dahlia ducked her head, skewering a third on one of her horns. Another dozen polyps swarmed through the door, then a dozen more. 

Philbey and Nil skidded to a halt at the doorway to the chamber of blades. Peering inside, Nil caught sight of firelight bobbing along near the far end of the room; Niven had already nearly made it through. 

“It seems the elf is quite intent on leaving us all for dead,” Nil said, breathing heavily. 

“Yeah, she’s like that.” Philbey grumbled, throwing a glance over his shoulder. He leaned through the door, cupping a hand by his mouth. “Niven! Niv, you shit, we could really use your help back here!”

“Not likely!” Niven called back, voice made hollow and echoing by the stone walls of the dungeon. “Meet me at the entrance if you survive!”

“Niven, you heartless bitch – shit!” Philbey snatched his hand away from the stone doorframe as creeping flesh overtook their position. “Niv, this shit isn’t slowing down, you’ve got to get out of there!”

Again, the transformation rushed to cover the chamber like an incoming tide, gray giving way to squirming crimson as if an invisible hand were peeling away the veil between one dimension and the next. Then the wave passed beneath one of the bladed poles. 

The piston shivered, flesh creeping along its length until it began to curl in on itself. Meanwhile, the fan of blades at the tip twitched and unfolded, calcifying into what would finally resemble flattened, razor-sharp fangs. A spasm ran through what was now a glistening tentacle lined with blades of bone; it curled against itself before lashing out blindly, blurring through the air like a whip. 

Nil and Philbey looked on in horror as the process repeated again and again, dozens of stalks flickering like insects’ wings as the transformation overtook the chamber. By the time Mycah stumbled up behind them, all that could be seen had become a nightmare of writhing flesh and bone. 

“What in all the…” Mycah breathed, coming to a stop just behind the shorter folk. The big man’s face was pale and clammy, wide eyes moving in a feverish zigzag. “What the fuck is going on?!”

A scream of frustration and pain rang out from the far end of the chamber. 

“Shit!” Philbey hissed, pulling out one of his daggers and taking a half-step through the doorway. Sweat stood out on his forehead. “Niven’s still in there. We gotta get through somehow.”

Nil looked over her shoulder to find Dahlia backpedaling toward them, still fending off an ever-increasing swarm of blubbery abominations. Between the emberling’s thick armor and her shield, she was doing a passable job of holding off the swarm – but it was still only the quickest of the polyps that were able to harass her. Behind them, hundreds more continued to pile over one another in search of prey. If they were truly overrun, it would not matter how well any of them could fight. 

“Yes,” Nil said, palming her own dagger, “we do.” She glared at Mycah, eyeing the sword at his hip. “Are you going to draw that blade, human, or is it reserved for threatening your friends?”

For an instant, Mycah’s face darkened with rage – then the look bled away, leaving only sallow resignation in its place. He drew his sword without a retort, but hesitated just short of walking into the chamber. 

“What’s going on?” Dahlia said, panting heavily as she backed into them. A single whorl of the emberling’s white hair had come loose across her forehead, her armor decorated with viscera and gummy splashes of whatever the polyps had in place of blood. “I thought I heard somebody scream, and-”

Dahlia finally turned to witness the chamber’s new form. “…Oh, wow.”

The emberling’s gaze swept from the doorway over the rest of the group, and she nodded to herself. “Okay,” she said, “here’s how we’re gonna do this. Two pairs, front and back – big guy, you’re with me in the front.” Dahlia hefted her shield. “We push through, hack these tentacle things down as we go. You two, stick in our shadow and keep the wigglies from swarming us. Deal?”

Mycah gave a fishlike blink. “Uh…”

“No time for collaborative input, big man!” Dahlia shouted, already dragging Mycah through the door by his shirt collar. Nil and Philbey traded a surprised look and followed after.

A terrible hissing arose from every direction the instant they entered the room, the squirming of the bone-tentacles growing suddenly more frenzied and intent. With the wild cacophony of a tin roof in a hailstorm, bladed claws flicked out to begin raining blows down on Dahlia’s head and shoulders. She winced, holding her shield aloft to fend off attacks aiming for her face, and swung her hammer for the spot where one of the stalks sprouted from the wall. 

The hammer’s head bit into soft flesh. Dahlia shifted her grip, hooking the lower edge around the tentacle’s base like a prybar, and heaved with all her strength; the stalk tore from its root in a spray of purplish blood and splattered to the ground. It writhed for a moment, a cut worm coiling and snapping, then went still. Encouraged, Mycah seemed to shake off some of the fear paralyzing him – he stepped in quickly behind Dahlia and took a swing at one of the preoccupied tentacles, lopping it off a third of the way down its length. The stub kept flopping for several seconds, loosing another spray of hot, stinking blood. 

Meanwhile, the party’s smaller members inched along behind them, daggers held at the ready. Every now and then a stray tentacle licked in their direction – but just as Dahlia had intended, the larger bodies acted as a wall against too much unwanted attention. For the time being, anyway. 

“You sure you know how to use that thing, lady?” Philbey said, attempting joviality despite the sweat running down his face. 

Nil responded with a withering look. “I’ll manage. What about you? Perhaps we ought to find you something more suitable, such as a gardening trowel.”

If the halfling had something witty to say in response, it was drowned out by high-pitched chittering as half a dozen polyps tumbled into the chamber. They clambered over one another like enormous pill bugs, slick carapaces gleaming in the torchlight until the frontmost of the creatures seemed to catch sight of the party. With a sudden burst of speed it surged forward, launching itself towards Nil’s face – for a split second, she caught sight of a snapping beak surrounded by pale, squirming cilia.

Philbey took half a step forward and lashed out with his knife held in a backhanded grip, catching the polyp in mid-air before it could reach her. It fell to the ground, nearly bisected and still twitching. Before the first hit the floor, however, two more polyps slammed into him; one latching wetly onto his shoulder, the other gnashing at the leather of his boot with chitinous mandibles. Nil ducked behind him, grasping the first by a cartilaginous ridge and yanking before it could sink its misshapen fangs into his neck. She plunged her dagger into one of the thing’s milky eyes and was rewarded by a spray of ichor striking her directly in the face. Choking down her disgust, Nil lifted her heel and drove it down in the center of the second polyp, collapsing it like a rotten melon. 

Time shrank around them until it seemed as if they might have spent hours cutting through that nightmarish tangle. Blood and mucus covered every surface, glistening in the dancing torchlight and making the hilts of weapons slippery in their hands. No one spoke; the only sounds were ragged breath, the dull squelching of steel against meat, the ever-rising insectile gibbering of the living dungeon’s defenses, combining as the seconds dragged on into a monotonous rhythm. 

Mycah threw a staggering swing, cleaving another tentacle and burying his sword in the wall behind it in the process. He moved wearily to tear it free – then stopped, eyes growing wide. 

“Niven!” He shouted, “Niven, just…just hold on! We’re almost there!”

Dahlia looked up and, almost immediately, wished that she had not. 

Suspended in the air before them was Niven, body held in place by the numerous tentacles coiling around her. One leg hung slack, the toe of her boot nearly touching the ground; each of the elf’s other limbs was pulled taut, wrapped by a tentacle that had used its bone-blades to anchor itself in her flesh. Aside from her face, it was impossible to discern the color of Niven’s clothes or skin for the blood seeping from seemingly every inch of her body. 

Niven lifted her head groggily, blood-soaked blonde hair hanging in lank clumps across her forehead. It looked like she was having trouble keeping her eyes open. “Took you fuckers long enough.” She slurred, the words flowing drunkenly into one another. 

A mournful groaning arose from somewhere deep in Mycah’s throat. He lurched forward and swung his sword, slicing through two of the tentacles encircling Niven’s midsection; they fell away from the wall, wriggling, even as the tips remained embedded in the flesh around her ribs. The elf made a choking sound as a fresh gout of blood spilled from her mouth. 

“Mycah!” Philbey said sharply, stepping forward to put a hand on the bigger man’s arm. “Mycah, look at her. It’s too late.”

“No! No, she’s still alive, there’s…” Mycah’s voice was ragged and desperate, bordering on the edge of mania. “…There has to be something we can… I can’t do this without her, Philbey!”

Dahlia looked from Mycah to Niven and back again, biting her lip. Her first instinct was to help in whatever way she could, but…even she could tell that Philbey was right. The only things keeping what little of the elf’s blood was still inside her body were the blades themselves – if Niven wasn’t dead already, she would be moments after they tried to take her down. 

“We don’t have time for this.” Nil said, disrupting Dahlia’s scattered thoughts. She paused, lifting her dagger as a vaguely snail-shaped polyp slithered toward her feet, then plunged the blade into the center of its pulpy mass. Nil gathered herself, breathing heavily. “There is only one thing to be done for her now.”

Mycah turned with rage sparking in his eyes, lips curling around a biting retort – and saw the swarm continuing to gather behind them, tumbling in seemingly endless numbers over the bodies of the mere dozen or so that Nil and Philbey had managed to kill. The big man’s shoulders slumped as he turned, slowly hefting his sword with trembling hands. 

“I’m sorry.” He muttered. Mycah’s head hung, rocking weakly back and forth. “I’m sorry. It wasn’t supposed to happen like this. I’m sorry…”

His blade hung in the air, poised to take Niven between the neck and shoulder. Mycah hesitated, gritting his teeth – then with a final, reluctant groan, the muscles in his shoulders tightened for the swing.

Niven convulsed. Again, Mycah hesitated, watching in horror as one of the tentacles restraining her arms peeled itself away and reared back. With an awful, meaty sound, the tip shot forward to plunge into the back of the elf’s neck. An instant later, Niven’s head snapped up, eyes peeling wide to show whites now gone dark and bloody. She opened her mouth and screamed, a buzzing, distorted sound, so loudly that the others instinctively clapped their hands over their ears to keep from being deafened.

The elf tore herself free, ripping the tentacles restraining her from their roots in a shower of fresh blood and landing in an animalistic crouch. Her body moved unnaturally, twitching and spasming as what was left of the tentacles seemed to fuse with her flesh, digging through Niven’s skin like parasitic worms. 

“N…Niv?” Mycah whispered. He shuffled back a step, holding his sword as if it were an amulet that might ward off evil. “Niven, are you…?”

Niven’s head snapped up and she sprang for him, hands curled into claws that groped for Mycah’s face. He yelped and stumbled back, and would likely have lost his footing entirely if Dahlia had not been standing directly behind him. She caught him between the shoulder blades with her shield and dug in her heels, straining with the effort of keeping the big man from toppling backwards. Meanwhile the thing that had been Niven crouched on his chest, snarling and thrashing; she seemed not to notice at all as Mycah’s blade, pinned between their bodies by the elf’s weight, began to dig into her left bicep.

At last, the balance began to shift. Roaring with effort, veins bulging across his forehead and shoulders, Mycah pushed forward and pulled his sword sharply down across Niven’s chest, prying loose her unnaturally powerful grip and sending the possessed elf tumbling into the pool of her own blood at their feet. With feral quickness she rolled, righted herself and crouched low to the ground, poised as if to pounce once more. Her left arm hung lifelessly against the ground, still connected to her body only by virtue of a few shredded bands of tendon. 

The room held its breath. Niven – or what had been Niven – swayed on her haunches, eyeing the party like a predator searching for the weakest member of the herd. 

“What are you waiting for?!” Nil shouted. “Kill it!”

Mycah gritted his teeth and took a step forward, brandishing his weapon in shaking hands. Rather than launching another attack, however, Niven suddenly hissed and scuttled sideways, crablike – she hit the wall and somehow managed to climb straight up, scurrying along like a blood-soaked, three-legged spider, her wounded arm dangling behind as she went. In just the span of a few seconds the elf had climbed some fifteen feet up the wall. With a final, enraged hiss, Niven twisted her ruined body and crawled into the wall; the strange flesh parted around her, shedding thin strings of translucent fluid as the elf’s legs disappeared inside. 

Philbey darted around Mycah as the bigger man’s knees began to wobble, holding out his palms. “Hey! Mycah, hey, look at me. We ain’t got time, alright? She’s gone. We gotta keep moving.”

The living dungeon appeared to agree. Another quake pulsed through the ground at their feet, creating undulations in the surface intense enough to be seen with the naked eye. The survivors looked up, watching as the walls and ceiling flexed dangerously, as the bone-stalks waved like prairie grass in the wind. This chamber, too, was beginning to collapse.

“We don’t have time for this!” Nil shouted, already bolting for the exit.

Dahlia met Philbey’s eye and gave the big human a hard shove in the back, sending him half-stumbling toward the door; Philbey caught him by the wrist and pulled, and together the two of them managed to spur Mycah into an ambling trot. 

Behind them, the chamber groaned and clenched in on itself as if squeezed by a gigantic fist, polyps chittering and shrieking as the swarm was rolled under and crushed by constricting walls of flesh.

The group stumbled into the next hall in a dire state – bloodied, lungs burning, their numbers whittled down now from six to four. Almost as soon as he reached the relative safety of the hall Mycah slumped forward and fell to one knee, gasping for air. Sweat poured from his pale forehead, splattering against the floor as he plunged the point of his sword into the ground, clinging to the weapon as if it were the only thing holding him upright. 

“Mycah, come on, man.” Philbey rushed to his side, putting a hand to Mycah’s shoulder. “Look, we’re almost out of here, yeah? Just one chamber left, you can do this, I know you can.”

“I can’t. I can’t, I can’t, can’t…” Mycah’s voice was thick and whining, almost childish. “I’m gonna die in here, we’re all gonna die, I can’t…!”

“Fucking listen to me, you enormous bastard!” Philbey snapped, grabbing the big human by his collar with both hands. Mycah blinked dumbly, momentarily startled from his spiral into despair. “We have to get out of here, understand? Not for you or me, but the Guild needs to know about this… this whatever the fuck is happening!” He swept his arm out to one side, indicating the pulsating flesh all around them. “If we die down here, nobody finds out what happened to us. Nobody figures out how the fuck this happened, or why, which means Arlum and Niven died for nothing. Is that what you want?!”

Mycah gawped up at him as if the halfling had started speaking a foreign language. Without his trademark look of smug self-assurance he suddenly looked much younger. “No… no, I…”

“Then get up, damn you!” Philbey yanked hard on the big man’s vest. “You’re still our leader, aren’t you? So get up and fucking lead!”

Mycah’s head drooped toward the ground, blood dripping from the hair hanging lank over his forehead – but it swung in a weak approximation of a nod as he shifted slowly, summoning the strength to push himself back to his feet. 

An entreating glance from the halfling was all the encouragement Dahlia needed to kneel at Mycah’s side and hook her arm around his. Together, she and Philbey supported Mycah’s muscular bulk as he rose on wobbling legs. He grunted with half-hearted irritation as he came to his feet, not quite shoving Dahlia away. 

“I’m fine, I’m fine.” Mycah grumbled, trying to scrape together a bit of his dignity even as his shaking hands betrayed several attempts to slide his sword smoothly back into its scabbard. “Get off me, it was just…I’m fine now.” 

Philbey caught Dahlia’s eye. Thanks, he mouthed silently. 

The doorway to the first and final chamber had lost its shape. 

It was impossible to know how much of the surrounding earth had been affected by the spreading transformation; for all those trapped inside knew, the corruption might yet have been diffusing infinitely in all directions, making ready to consume all of Qorth. Whatever the case, there was no longer enough foundational stone around the opening to hold its rectangular form – What had once been a doorway was now an orifice, partially collapsed in on itself and slick with a sheen of unnameable liquid. It pulsed slowly as the party approached, contracting and retracting rhythmically as if the entire dungeon were breathing.

“Oh – oh gods.” Nil said, closing her entire fist over her nose, “What is that?”

Dahlia leaned in, sniffing the air curiously. “Smells like…eugh. Bad breath?”

“Like the worst I’ve ever smelled, yeah.” Philbey said. He followed Nil’s lead, squeezing his nose shut with a thumb and forefinger. “So, uh. Who’s going in first?”

The halfling glanced at Mycah, only to be met with a scowl – but Dahlia was already striding purposefully forward.

“Not to worry, folks.” Dahlia said, crouching to inspect the passage.  “Dahlia Scratch never turns down an opportunity to face down the unknown, slimy and horrific though it might be! Follow my lead.”

Going to her hands and knees, dipping her head forward to keep from catching her horns on the membranous surface above, Dahlia crawled into the little tunnel and quickly disappeared from sight. Suddenly, a startled yelp and the sounds of splashing emanated from the passage.

“Dahlia!” Nil scurried to the opening, stopping just short of touching it. “Dahlia, can you hear me? What’s in there?”

“Ehck. Uh, yeah, I’m fine.” Said Dahlia’s voice. “Pretty dark though, should have asked for a torch. And it’s, uh…wet? Really wet. I think I got it in my mouth…”

“Alright, out of the way.” Mycah said, pushing past. He held his torch straight-armed as he went low, awkwardly crawling one-handed until he too disappeared into the darkness. 

***

The first thing Nil noticed as she crawled out from the fleshy passage and came to her feet was the feeling of something warm soaking into her slippers. She looked down to find herself submerged to the knees in water, its surface glittering softly in the light from Mycah and Philbey’s torches. There was something strange about it, though – hardly surprising, given the current circumstances. It seemed… thicker than water ought to be. Nil leaned closer, squinting. 

She gagged as another wave of that same foul odor washed over her. Like halitosis and feces, she thought, eyes watering. It was not to say that the rest of the flesh-tunnels had smelled of roses, far from it; but this was something else entirely. The smell pushed in on her like a membrane, clinging to her skin, utterly unbearable even when Nil kept from breathing through her nose. She could taste it. 

Dahlia and the others stood just beyond Nil’s position, staring into the chamber with expressions of mute horror. No one moved – and as the goblin witch lifted her eyes toward the ceiling, she found out why. 

The first chamber’s ceiling hung low, what had once been a flat expanse of stone now a lumpy canopy of mottled, pinkish meat. Its lowest point wobbled little more than a foot or so above the top of Mycah’s head. Nil could see dozens of puckered indentations pulsing with the same breathing rhythm as the passage behind them. 

“Light of the trine guide us.” Philbey murmured under his breath, crossing himself. 

Something glistened against the wall to Nil’s right, drawing her attention. Not unlike the ceiling, the walls of this chamber were lined with fist-sized orifices, each and every one of them leaking with a steady trickle of water that flowed down the wall and into the pool at their feet. Another quick glance down confirmed her immediate suspicion; the water level had already climbed midway up her thighs. 

“Rising. It’s rising!” She called out, disturbing the others from their stunned reverie. “Look at your feet! We need to keep moving!”

Mycah glanced down. “Shit. Shit, she’s right, we need to…” 

He moved half a step forward, then hesitated, stretching out his torch arm to peer as far into the shadows as possible. His hands were trembling again. “Oh, gods. Alright, everyone just-”

Something huge and white surged up from the murk at their feet, nearly knocking the torch from Mycah’s hand and sending a massive plume of water splashing over the group. In a fraction of a second, a roughly cylindrical pillar of solid material – bone, perhaps, from the color – filled the space directly in front of the big human, as thick as his shoulders were broad. It shuddered as they watched and slowly began to descend, pulling free of where it had lodged itself in the ceiling with a hideous schluuuck. 

Before the stunned dungeon-delvers had a chance to recover, another pillar erupted from one of the openings in the ceiling and smashed into the ground at their right. Another splash, another shower of viscous, foul-smelling water. With a deafening crack, two more columns burst forth from the floor and ceiling to their left, smashing into one another and sending pale shards shooting off in all directions. Not bones, Nil realized with dawning disgust – enormous, elongated teeth filled the floor and ceiling, ready to smash and grind anyone who ventured too close.

It was not water the chamber was filled with. They were standing in saliva.

Nil made a strangled sound and turned away, holding a hand over her mouth in a desperate attempt to hold down the contents of her stomach.

“Alright, everybody just – just don’t panic.” Philbey said, giving Mycah a wary look out of the corner of his eye. “Let’s just see if, um…”

He began to sidle carefully along one side of the first tooth, edging his foot forward little by little – then jumped back as another sprung forth from above and smashed into the ground where his boot had been an instant before. 

“This fuckin’ place…!” Philbey gasped. “Okay, it’s definitely sensing us, somehow. Ideas? Anybody?”

Dahlia scanned their claustrophobic surroundings, wracking her brain for anything that could be of use. All around, the chamber’s monstrous teeth continued to slam and gnash at random, throwing massive splashes of saliva into the air. The cacophony of thundering impacts made it nearly impossible to think. 

Suddenly, it came to her. Dahlia spun wildly and dove back through the crawlspace, tail flicking out of sight before anyone else had a chance to object.

“Dahlia!” Nil exclaimed. “Dahlia, where are you g-“

The emberling reappeared with startling quickness, cradling something in the crook of her elbow. She hopped to her feet with a flourish, holding out her prize: a human ribcage, nearly complete but for a few snapped bones.

“Wh-” Philbey stopped short, a puzzled look on his face. “Gods rotting, lady, you could at least – wait, is that…?” He squinted at her hands for a moment. “What good is some poor dead bastard gonna do us?”

“I got an idea.” Dahlia said, holding the bones out like a trophy. “Hey, everybody! I need you to stay perfectly still for a second!”

“Ain’t going anywhere.” Mycah grumbled. 

After a few seconds of stillness the chamber seemed to calm, piston-like teeth sprouting more and more sporadically until their motion ceased entirely. Dahlia snapped a rib free with exaggerated care and lifted it over her head, holding it like a boomerang. With all her strength, she whipped the bone toward the opposite corner of the chamber where it bounced off the wall and landed in the pool with a soft plunk.

No sooner had the rib disappeared below the surface than another tooth slammed down from above, then another and another as the chamber attempted blindly to mulch everything in the general area. Dahlia took a breath, readying every muscle in her body to jump back if her theory was incorrect – and took one long, smooth step forward. 

Nothing happened. Teeth continued to gnash where the rib had fallen, steadily decreasing in frequency for several seconds – but Dahlia went unmashed. She felt a grin spread across her face. 

“It’s the pool!” She called out, taking care not to shift her lower body, “The ripples, or…I don’t know, something. But I think, if we can keep it distracted-!”

“You think?” Mycah scoffed. “You want us to wander out into…that, ‘cuz you’ve got a hunch?!”

“I mean, hey,” Dahlia said, snapping off another rib, “I ain’t tellin’ you what to do, but I think we’re all gonna be underwater in a couple minutes, aaand it seems like the whole place is trying to collapse behind us, sooo…”

The emberling reared back and flung a second rib, aiming for the opposite corner. Just as before, the small splash set off a flurry of violent activity, during which Dahlia was able to steal another few strides. 

“At least she has an idea.” Nil said, stepping past Mycah and wading in after Dahlia. “The halfling and I are going to be swimming before long, and I don’t see a wealth of other options.”

Philbey shrugged. “Works for me.”

A third rib produced the same results, allowing the two of them to nearly catch up to Dahlia’s progress. Upon the fourth Mycah let out a grunt of frustration and started after them, surging forward in long, violent strides and almost losing his balance in the process. 

“Hey, hey!” Philbey called out, “Easy, big man!”

“Fuck off.” Mycah snapped. “I’m not dying down here.” He stabbed a finger at Dahlia. “You, another one. Now!”

“Uh, yeah. Whatever you say, boss.” 

Dahlia snapped off another piece and held it aloft, closing one eye and biting her tongue like a child aiming a slingshot. She reeled back, took a breath, and let her arm whip forward. 

The bone slipped from between her fingers. 

Three pairs of eyes widened in horror as the rib spun into the air above Dahlia’s head. It seemed to hang there for an impossibly long time, turning end over end in lazy loops. Someone gasped. 

Dahlia’s hand floated up toward the bone, trying to snatch it from the air before it could fall into the pool and spell their doom. It bounced from her fingers, tracing a new arc over her shoulder; her left hand swept out for another attempt, just a little too fast. The back of her hand clipped it as it fell, sending the rib ricocheting somewhere behind her. She’d lost it. Dahlia squeezed her eyes shut, jaw tensing. 

There was no splash. Philbey let out a laugh, wild and disbelieving. 

“I got it!” He said in a wavering voice. “I actually got-”

There was a sudden, large splash; three heads snapped to the left as Mycah leapt forward, too deep in the grip of panic to realize that he had just outpaced their distraction. Someone started to shout his name, but of course it was already too late.

A tooth punched through the floor just behind Mycah, its upper edge catching one of his legs and launching him into the air in a cartwheel – he flew toward the far end of the chamber and disappeared below the surface of the pool. Meanwhile, the space around the other three survivors turned instantly to chaos. Dahlia jumped back – or tried to, as being half submerged in saliva made maneuvering exceptionally difficult – and was immediately blown from her feet by an impact from the right. Thick, foul liquid rushed into her nose and mouth as she went below the surface, and for what felt like minutes she struggled to find her bearings; the murk churned and frothed around her, dark and thunderous with the muted sound of crashing teeth. 

Dahlia broke the surface thrashing and sputtering, scraping madly at her face in an effort to clear her vision. The first thing she saw was Nil, standing perfectly still with her arms hovering above the surface; the goblin caught her eye and held out a flat, trembling palm. Philbey was nowhere to be seen.

“Don’t. Move.” Nil breathed.

The sound of choking drew Dahlia’s attention. She turned to find Philbey hanging in the air, pinned somehow against a pair of teeth erupting from the floor and ceiling. A moment’s closer inspection revealed what held him there; the halfling had narrowly avoided being crushed between the bony pillars, but his scarf had not. Philbey hung suspended from his neck, feet kicking just above the surface of the pool as his face gradually turned a dangerous shade of purple. He still held the rib in one white-knuckled fist.

“Philbey!” Dahlia called out, “Stop, stop. Look at me!”

The halfling’s thrashing slowed; his eyes, bloodshot and bulging, tracked down toward her.

“The bone.” She held eye contact, willing Philbey to keep calm. “It’s still in your hand. Just take a second…and throw it.”

Philbey grimaced, wheezing, a vein standing out on his forehead. Painfully slowly he drew his arm across his chest, held for a moment – and let his hand flick out, sending the rib arcing toward the back corner of the chamber.

Dahlia was up and moving the instant she heard the splash. She surged forward to stand beneath the trapped halfling, hugging his legs and lifting until she heard Philbey finally manage to take in a hacking breath.

“What are you doing?!” Nil cried out. “Leave him, we need to get out of here!”

“No, I’m not leaving him like this.” Dahlia said. “Give me some help!”

“Are you insane? You’re going to get yourself killed!”

Dahlia turned her head, speaking through gritted teeth. “Yeah. And you can’t let that happen, right? So get over here and help me.”

With an impressively guttural growl of frustration for someone so small, Nil scrambled over to Dahlia’s back and began to climb. Luckily the emberling’s armor made for easy terrain, bulky as it was, and Nil was able to ascend to the point of standing on her shoulders in a matter of seconds. Dagger in hand, she reached around behind Philbey’s head and made a yanking motion.

Philbey dropped into Dahlia’s arms, gasping raggedly. Unable to move, the emberling could only stand there – a halfling hugged against her chest and a goblin perched on her shoulders – as the teeth that had been pinning him in place began their slow retraction.

“Gods be good, I…” Philbey rubbed at his throat, grimacing. “Thank you. Thank you for that.”

His eyebrows went up slightly. “Oh. You’re quite strong, aren’t you?”

Sweat ran down Dahlia’s forehead; a noticeable tremor had become present in her shoulders. “Thanks.” She said in a strangled voice. “Somebody grab a rib.”

With extreme care, Nil and Philbey worked together – still using Dahlia like a platform above the pool – to break another fragment off the rib cage and toss it away. They turned in time to witness Mycah, soaking with a sheen of saliva but otherwise unharmed, break the surface of the pool and drag himself through the door at the end of the chamber.

“Mycah!” Philbey shouted after him, “Get the fuck back here!”

Mycah showed no sign of listening or, indeed, even hearing as he disappeared from sight. They let him go – there wasn’t much of an option – and focused on keeping to Dahlia’s strategy until the trio emerged, shaken but in one piece, at the end of the chamber. Without a word they crawled through the next passage, leaving a chamber almost entirely filled with fluid behind them.