The underground job
A fantasy short story. Working in the dungeons is not an easy job
Audio version can be found here.
I was in the middle of my regular practice. I was so focused on my forms and positions and transitioning between them as flawlessly and fluidly as possible that I probably wasn't paying as much attention as I should have. My practice routine is one of the reasons why my coworkers think I am really weird.
I was in the pose of a menacing standing knight, preparing to transition into a lurking chimera, when I noticed some suspicious noises coming from the hallway.
A distant moaning and flapping sounds, a clear sign of zombies trying to run, with the occasional louder smacking as one of them lost its balance and slammed its rotting face into the floor. Quiet, but quick and sure footsteps approaching. A click of a trap being triggered, followed by a clang as the spikes crashed violently into a wall.
I immediately went back to my place in a dark corner of the chamber and froze in my usual pose, stiff as a board.
This might be interesting, I thought.
And it was.
She had a beautifully athletic body, clad only in thin leather, and man, she did know how to move. She noticed the traps at the entrance to the chamber and leapt gracefully over the pressure plates. I've tried to imprint that image in my mind: a graceful woman in leather jumping over the deadly traps. I decided to try that as my next painting project. I still suck at trying to draw figures in motion.
She landed in a crouch and took a quick look around. The zombies were coming closer, though they were obviously slowing down, afraid of the traps. But there was a distant clatter, which meant that one of the armored skeletons had been awakened by the commotion and had joined the hunt for the thief. With her mind already made up, she took a quick step toward what she thought was safety.
When she realized that the door on the other side of the chamber only led to a small alcove, she became visibly nervous. She turned back, looked around the half-empty chamber again, and then stared into the corner.
She realized she was trapped in a dead end. She had a belt with two long daggers, but she looked like the kind of hero who prefers to avoid direct confrontation.
She made a decision that I expected. She ran to a large, battered cupboard in the corner, opened it, peered cautiously inside, and then hid there. She crouched down and shut the door.
I heard her trying to breathe slowly and deeply to calm herself. She was crouching, daggers at the ready, peering out through a narrow crack. She watched as the first zombie shambled into the chamber, stepping on a trigger plate at the entrance.
A huge spike shot through the zombie and pinned it to the wall.
The moans and grunts of the other zombies took on an amused tone, but they ignored their struggling friend and looked around carefully, trying to spot their prey.
And trigger plates for more traps. Not all zombies are completely stupid, just the vast majority of them.
When the loud clatter announced the arrival of the skeleton knight, the zombies stepped aside. The undead have a strict hierarchy, with fresh zombies being the lowest on the corporate ladder.
The skeleton knight quickly checked the chamber and then looked in my direction, with a suspicious look in the magic fire that served as his eyes. But he shrugged and began to chase the zombies away, back to their posts.
The thief breathed a sigh of relief and slowly sheathed her daggers.
When the clatter of knights' armor and the smacking sounds of rotten feet from the corridor died down, I decided to give it a try. I whispered: "Do you know any good jokes?"
She froze. Then she tried to break down my door. She tried to pull out her daggers.
I sighed and squeezed her as hard as I could.
I guess she didn't know any good ones. Too bad. If she had, maybe I would have risked it and let her go.
Maybe.
But it is hard to find a good job for an old mimic of my size, and I was quite happy with my current one, even though all my co-workers thought I was a weirdo and a creep.