Chapter 10 - Soul-Brother - The Traveling Dungeon (Patreon)

Rok patted the scales over his chest as he exited his latest challenge. The warm-satisfied-full sensation from his partner echoed through his mind as they turned the last corner through the twisting halls of the dungeon. This wasn’t his first time in a dungeon, but it was the first time he or anyone he knew had experienced something so odd. If the tribe-mother hadn’t confirmed it, he would have believed it was the work of a tribunal of mad wizards. The achievements, as few as he had managed to earn, only confirmed it.

Before he stepped through the disorienting vestibule, Rok bent his head while tapping his left tusk, a gesture of respect to his eldest brother - the last still living. Mo-onak noticed the gesture of respect but ignored him. They hadn’t been on speaking terms for years, and only the death of their middle brother in the challenges had mended some of the hurt. They would never like each other, their views were too different, but they were the last of their line.

Acidic-torn-worn rippled from his partner, the pattern a question related to emotions. Explaining the outer world to his partner was probably impossible, just as his partner’s inner world was as confusing to him. Still, their communication was closer than anyone in the greater tribe had ever managed. That was their focus. They didn’t strive for strength like Mo-onak or speed like their late middle brother Loka. Rok and his partner wanted to speak beyond the closeness that came from being partners and soul-brothers.

Dodging around the line blocking the entrance, Rok stepped to the side and leaned against the side of the stone gate. Tapping across his chest, fingers gently bumping the scaled surface in a pattern, he tried to explain the idea of uncertainty that comes from family ties and the conflicts they brought. The closest they had come to an understanding was that of different parts of the whole not working together.

Warm-satisfied-empty was returned. A sign of agreement, with confusion over the details. Likely the best he could expect. They were partners, but as much as he tried, he doubted they would ever truly understand each other. That this was the same for Mo-onak and himself was a strange irony that Rok was fully aware of. Closer than brothers but still forever distant.

Leaning disrespectfully against the freestanding magical gateway, the large Orc watched as the line of his people entered and left the dungeon. The young - excited and confident, the old who - stoic for a last chance at a new personal goal, the life suddenly returned to their days. Last were those who marched silently from the gateway. Their eyes haunted but unwilling to release their grief. Those who cried or muttered shivered or clenched their teeth in anger. Still, many joined the end of the line to continue advancing. For some, the sadness and loss were too great. They would take this excuse to end their own suffering acceptably, others because they did not know their limits or would not acknowledge them.

His gentle tapping continued. The crude communication with his partner conveying his thoughts and feelings as best he could, even while his soul-brother explained the inner workings of hormones, growth patterns, and digestion. Rok’s tap-speech were broken shouts into the darkness, his partner desperately screaming unheard words in exchange. Even as he took long calming breaths, he drank deeply from the gazes of his people, the pain and pride both. While the line continued to move, slowly shuffling forward, he could see it shorten. Each time the line moved forward without another joining the end, Rok felt a knife of pain twist in his guts.

Below the crowd’s murmurs, a gentle hum grew until the light words of encouragement and grief were drowned by a raging storm of twisting magic. Unfolding from his hunched position against the gateway, Rok turned to the noise source where the air shimmered and twisted. Violently shivering, the air rent and broke as a stone structure pulled itself through a tear in the world. The crowd’s silence was broken by the youngest shouting in excitement. The oldest simply warily watched the newest structure at the edge of the village. The younger men rushed forward in excitement, hoping that the stone building was a new challenge. At the same time, the oldest could only give weary looks to the rushing youngsters. 

Elder Vah slowly limped forward, her hairless head hunched under the ages she had seen. The ancient Algek wood staff she carried, long smoothed from the decades of handling, clicked across the stone and grass. For a moment, Rok’s eyes met the Elder’s, and the weight of her years pressed against his mind. Her rage, her sadness, her joy, the sheer press of years, each a hammer blow before her gaze shifted away and with it the weight. Pain-pain-pain?

Rok’s fingers hovered over his chest in confusion before he tapped for his partner to wait.

Rok hovered at the Elder’s shoulder. He carefully followed as she made her slow torturous way to the newest building. The young shifted out of her path, their eagerness cut short by her piercing gaze and Rok’s carefully controlled stare. As easy as the Elder found it to quell the youngsters, Rok felt it beneath the Elder to shoo them away. Before he could speak, Elder Vah’s precise jab collapsed a slowly moving youngster’s leg out from under him, and his friends pulled the fallen boy from her way. Chuckling, the old woman continued on the now cleared path to the stone building.

Stopping before the small stone building, formed of granite and rough stone, Elder Vah leaned back slightly to tilt her head and examine the structure. Until then, the Elder had seemed ancient but solid, her body akin to the ancient twisted wood of her staff. Aged beyond memory but still solid and unbending. With the awkward, painful movement, Rok could sense the frailty of her body held together through pure strength of will. The silently surrounding crowd ignored the loud popping of her joints as she returned to her hunched posture.

When Rok tried to offer a hand to help her up the stairs, the staff produced a solid clack of wood on bone as his hand was struck away. Giving him a toothless grin, she slowly shuffled up the stone steps. Her pace laborious and painful until she reached the top, where she quickly outpaced him to enter the gateway first. The younger Orc ignored the smirk of the Elder, familiar with the elders of his village and the way they liked to tease and torment the young, and everyone was younger than Elder Vah.

The pair stopped at the entrance of the building. It had the same distorted sense of scale, the weird magical ability to be far larger on the inside than the outside, but the magical density was different. This didn’t feel like a dungeon. There was something in the air, a sense of change that was lacking from the outside, but it didn’t have the tell-tale river of raw magic spewing from the entrance that the moving gateway had. It was also far more straightforward in construction. Instead of marble lines etched with veins of gold, pillars of carved stone, and patterned hallways, this was a simple hall of grey stone. Almost crude despite the fine lines of cut blocks, this building, despite its sudden appearance, had nearly a feeling of age. 

Before Rok could say anything to the Elder, she stepped into the room, where she froze and glanced around.

Then she laughed. A cackle, almost a mad giggle, etched with pain.

Pain-pain-pain? His soul-brother queried, followed by a flood of patterns of hormones and chemical signals, each more complex than the last. The message was lost; all Rok could understand was a sense of distress from his soul-brother and the disquiet from his own inner-world. Tapping the pattern for uncertainty, Rok followed the Elder as she silenced her laughter and began to march down the hall. His first stride into the hallway of smooth stone was followed by an oppressive feeling of dominance, of overwhelming challenge. The far end of the hall was adorned with a fresco of stone. The polished colored stonework matched the portrait of Coldona from the dungeon and was the source of the challenge.

Elder Vah marched forward, her pace slowed only by the tapping of her staff, the magical field of emotion ignored.

Gritting his teeth, Rok forced his way through the field of dominance. Memories of previous demands from his brother Mo-onak and his barked orders shedding from his mind, the new experience echoing past psychic trauma only to be ignored and forced aside. Each footfall was a sledgehammer blow, the weight increasing at each step, the hallway seeming to contract and press down. By the midpoint, his breath came in gasps. Teeth and tusks bit into his cheeks to let the blood flow, drip, and fall ignored. Rok’s vision shifted into a black tunnel edged in a faint gray line only to snap into focus when he stopped behind the small Elder.

With a quick grin over her shoulder, the Elder turned back to the stone fresco as it began to glow. Bright white light leached from beneath the stone painting, growing ever brighter until the hallway appeared like the noon sun. Rok protected his slitted eyes against the glare by a single upraised arm. The Elder simply closed her eyes and waited. When the glow faded, the fresco’s plaque was the last to lose the glare. The carved obsidian square shone white with a light that somehow made the black stone brighter than the unpolished grey granite of the hallway. Finally, the hallway was returned to its previous dim state, and the black stone plaque was etched with words of white marble.

Coldona, Goddess of Challenge and Dungeons.

“Hmm,” Elder Vah said, her lips gently smacking as she leaned on her staff and stared at the plaque.

Rok silently stared in confusion, knowing that something profound had changed but unsure what it meant for him and the greater tribe.

“Well,” the ancient crone said in a contemplative voice, “that was interesting. Not every day you have a Goddess try and bribe you. A fun bit with the hallway there. A temple where you have to prove yourself before you can worship? She at least understands us. Aye?” the Elder said, giving Rok a sly smile before returning her gaze to the portrait.

Rok’s confused look was broken by the Elder smacking him in the side with her staff, the blow not enough to injure but far more than a gentle rebuke.

“So? You going to pray to the Goddess after you conquered such an interesting challenge?” Elder Vah asked, her voice still dripping with a sly cunning.

Rok blinked yet again in confusion before he shook off the last effects of the dominance from the hallway. Pain-pain-pain!?

It was only then that Rok recognized the silent concern and ever screaming distress of his soul-brother. The three-part pattern calling in confusion at the strange changes his partner had been detecting in his body. Standing straighter as he stared sightlessly at the portrait of a Goddess, Rok tapped for his brother to calm, that he was alright and recovering after a dangerous but not deadly challenge. Rok paused with his hands held over his chest, fingers twitching in distraction as the beat of his chest drum stumbled as he realized a prayer that matched his own goals.

Turning away from the fresco, Rok began to march down the hallway, the abnormal pressure absent as he left. Without looking back, the young man answered the watching crone.

“I don’t need her blessing. She can have my prayers when I conquer my challenge without her help,” Rok said with confidence.

The stone painting of Coldona brightened with a gentle glow as the Elder laughed at the youngster’s words before turning herself and following him out of the temple.

“Yup. She definitely understands us,” Elder Vah said.