Wheatley | Barley | Terrence | Logue

Words: 920

You hear a faint trickling in the passage with you, and torchlight reveals a dark liquid rushing through grooves in the floor underfoot. You follow the trail to a stone sarcophagus sitting uncovered at the center of a circular chamber. Peering hesitantly inside, you see the dark liquid congealing there, its scabbed surface grotesque but enthralling…

Barley flips through the pages of the book. It reads of the history of the dungeon room. A madman who called himself an alchemist spoke of his disdain to his alchemical community. 

“Ah, a journal,” Barley said point blank.

“Quite the complainer this guy, eh?” Logue said jokingly.

Barley chuckled. He continued to read the book and learnt how the madman has made a home for himself, deep below the ground, and conducted atrocious crimes against humanity. He’d play with the travellers and ruffians that came across him, keeping them in his dungeon to be used for his experimentations. Undead ghouls, never-ending suffering of never being let to rest… The mad man wanted to be immortal. Nothing in his book spoke about his success though, only of his failed experimentations. After every failed attempt, he’d head down to the lower levels to drop the corpses for the monsters below.

“That’s it!” Wheatley stomped his foot. “The mad man must have written a thing or two about the depths.” The golden boy got up and started examining each door. “Read on, Barley, tell me more about this mad man.”

Barley read on. The madman spoke of the underground where he dumped the corpses to be covered in smooth, glistening blackstone. Sounds would bounce from its walls, creating an echo chamber. In the middle of it all, a sarcophagus. He said how the sarcophagus was his source of power, his muse.

“There’s nothing on the left side. Just dead ends and giant rats.”

Barley and Logue turned to Terrence. He’s covered in some kind of swamp water with a bit of bruise on his legs. Both coursers didn’t even realise he had split from the group to check out one of the doors.

“This one isn’t though.”

All eyes are now turned to Wheatley. He stares into the door closest to the back end of the room. Wind whispers from the exit, beckoning the horse to come closer. Grabbing a torch, he stood close by the door entrance, making sure not to step in.

The light could barely make it but the lower the stairs to the bottom go, the smoother the stone becomes.

“How are you holding up, Terrence?” he checks in on the dark coat beauty.

Terrence grabs a herbal leaf from Barley. Amidst his chews, he spoke, “Still got some fight in me, giant rats and smelly sewers can’t bring me down that easily.”

“Then let’s get going. This path must lead us down.”

“Why not take the other door?” Logue asked, stepping closer to the right door closest to the entrance. Wheatley simply shook his head.

“You’re free to go down, but the walls are covered in Magnolia ardenti, Burning Men. A singular touch of those flowers and your skin will start to eat itself outside in.” He nudges Barley to come along with him before continuing, “It’ll feel like you’re burning and melting.”

A horrified look strewn across Logue’s face as he looked back to the room. Sure enough, sprouting out from the cracks on the wall are flowers with vine-like tendrils curling around every crevice and surface it could find. The thought of such a poisonous plant melting away his skin sends shivers down his spine.

He left the door to head towards the group, where Wheatley gets ready to lead them down. “Everyone ready?” They all nod and the crew begins their descent down to the bottom of the stairs.

It might have felt like ages as the group made their way down. The only source of light was from the torch that Terrence was holding, as blackstone was thick and dark enough to not let light through let alone bounce off it. Just when they were about to take another short rest, the stairs underneath Barley began to crumble, catching the coursers off guard. Before they could react on time, bit by bit, each stair began to break and crumble till all of them fell to the deep abyss.

Or so they thought, when they realised they’d only fallen one floor below.

Shaking the dust off of them, the group noticed the tall stone archway leading them to a circular room. Condensed amethysts take place as floors, making light twinkling sounds as they gently glow with each step.

“We should be careful-” Barley’s words were cut off as Wheatley kept going forward, caution thrown to the wind.

“There’s some kind of secret in that sarcophagus,” he said, not paying attention to his surroundings, “I’m sure of it.”

Wheatley kept going as thought he was enthralled by some kind of magic. The other horses could only look at each other warily, Barley being most concerned over his partner.

“Well, I’m not dyeing that but-” he catches up to Wheatley and he could see some kind of fog in his eyes, “wouldn’t it be better if we be more careful with the things in the dungeon?”

No answer came from the golden courser, as he kept going till he stood right in front of the sarcophagus.

All the other horses came behind him, trying to peer into the sarcophagus but was hit by an intense rotting smell. Shimmering red liquid swirls within it, clearly infused with arcane magic. Wheatley simply stared into the liquid, entranced by the movement.

Terrence stepped up, “Little lordling, I would not suggest you to be too close to the-”

He was completely ignored. Wheatley lifted his hoof and dipped it into the liquid, much to the horror of his party members.