They transferred the animal fat into the largest ceramic bowl Elias had made.
It was still damp.
Elias stared at it.
Then at the enormous dinosaur skull they had been using until now.
“Hopefully this survives.”
Barbara looked down at the bowl.
“And if it doesn’t?”
“We lose the container.”
“And the fat?”
“Yes.”
Barbara picked up the dinosaur skull.
“We’re bringing this.”
Elias nodded.
“Sensible.”
A few minutes later, Elias, Barbara and Rosella set off in search of coal.
The others remained behind.
Sid watched them disappear into the vegetation.
Then slowly looked down at the mutilated goblin.
“I wonder…”
Kaya immediately looked over.
“No.”
“You don’t even know what I’m thinking.”
“I know enough.”
Sid ignored her.
He removed what remained of the goblin’s skin.
Then the hair.
The residual tissue.
Everything.
By the time he finished, nothing remained but bone.
Sid examined the small skeleton.
Then drew the silver crystal.
“Oh…”
Kaya stood.
“What?”
Sid touched the crystal to the goblin’s skull.
Then began to carve.
SCRATCH.
Silver light spread through the rune.
SCRATCH.
Another.
The crystal dimmed with every mark.
Kaya approached cautiously.
“Sid.”
“Mm?”
“You don’t know what that silver stuff does.”
“Correct.”
“And you’re using it anyway?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Sid glanced at her.
“How else would I find out?”
Kaya stared.
He returned to carving.
The final rune closed.
Silver light pulsed through the goblin’s bones.
Its fingers twitched.
Then—
CLACK.
The skeleton sat upright.
Kaya took a step back.
Sid stared at it.
The goblin stared back.
A long silence followed.
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
Sid gestured toward Kaya.
“Kaya, if you would be so kind…”
She sighed.
“Of course.”
Rosella led the way out of the golden cavern.
The vegetation thinned until they reached a broad, low tunnel disappearing into the rock.
Barbara ducked beneath the entrance.
Elias followed.
After several hundred paces, the passage divided.
Rosella stopped.
Barbara shifted the dinosaur skull on her shoulder.
“Which way?”
Rosella looked left.
Then right.
Then left again.
“This.”
She turned left.
Elias followed.
“Confident?”
“No.”
“Wonderful.”
The passage descended sharply before opening into another cavern.
Barbara crouched beneath the low mouth of the tunnel.
Beyond it, darkness opened overhead.
Not the impossible scale of the golden cavern, but still enormous.
A river rushed somewhere to their left.
Mud and clay replaced the dry limestone beneath their feet.
Elias raised his red crystal.
Its glow caught something metallic near the riverbank.
He stopped.
A pale vein ran through the exposed stone.
“Note to self.”
Rosella looked back.
“What?”
“Potentially tin.”
Barbara continued walking.
“We’re looking for black rocks.”
“I’m aware.”
Elias followed reluctantly.
Several minutes later—
Drip.
Something cold struck his skull.
He looked up.
Water seeped through cracks overhead.
More dark patches stained the ground ahead.
The cavern was changing.
The ceiling gradually descended until it hung only a few hundred feet above them.
Their path climbed.
A steep stone slope rose between clusters of green crystals.
Bones littered the incline.
Some human.
Some decidedly not.
The green glow washed across the surrounding walls but barely reached the ground between the formations, leaving deep pools of shadow beneath their feet.
Rosella slowed.
“I think it was around here.”
Elias stopped.
“Think?”
Rosella looked at him.
“Yes.”
“Or know?”
She hesitated.
Barbara glanced back.
“Try retracing your steps.”
Rosella looked around.
“I can’t remember.”
Silence.
Elias stared.
“Well, you ought to have some idea.”
Rosella pointed toward the nearest wall.
“Maybe…”
She walked over.
“I thought it was somewhere along here.”
The three of them looked.
The wall stretched into darkness in both directions.
Barbara nodded.
“Better than nothing.”
Elias sighed.
They followed it.
Ten minutes.
Twenty.
Forty.
Nearly an hour.
Nothing.
Elias finally stopped.
“Are you certain it was this way?”
Rosella shrugged.
“It was…”
She searched for the words.
“Long time ago?”
Barbara adjusted the dinosaur skull.
“Hah. Maybe somebody else found it first.”
She rolled one shoulder.
Then the other.
“Well, I’m beat.”
Elias crouched beside the wall.
“There should still be evidence.”
He ran his fingers across the stone.
“Carbonaceous seams. Compressed organic material. Sedimentary layering consistent with—”
TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP.
Elias stopped.
Barbara turned.
“What’s that?”
TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP.
Fast.
Irregular.
Too many points of contact.
Elias stood.
His red crystal came free.
“Barbara.”
“What?”
“Statistically speaking, you are the most likely individual here to survive whatever is making that noise.”
Barbara stared at him.
“You have a wonderful way with words.”
TAP TAP TAP.
TAP TAP TAP TAP.
Barbara lowered the dinosaur skull.
Then drew the green crystal from between her ribs.
Something shifted against the wall.
Not beside it.
Against it.
A shape detached itself from the darkness.
Hard feet scraped across stone.
Then—
A blur crossed the green light.
Elias immediately stepped behind Barbara.
Rosella joined him.
Barbara glanced back at both of them.
“Really?”
“Yes,” Elias replied.
The tapping circled them.
TAP TAP TAP TAP.
Then stopped.
Silence.
Barbara raised the crystal.
TAP.
Closer.
TAP.
Her grip tightened.
TAP.
“Our Father, who art in heaven…”
Elias looked at her.
Barbara stared into the darkness.
“Hallowed be thy name.”
Something moved.
“Thy kingdom come…”
The green light caught a leg.
Long.
Black.
Jointed.
“Thy will be done…”
The creature emerged.
A spider.
Nearly a metre tall at the body and three metres across, its legs spread wide across the stone.
Its weight made the smaller bones beneath it crack.
Barbara stared.
A pause.
“…on earth as it is in heaven.”
The spider lunged.
“Amen.”
Barbara charged.
They collided.
CLANG.
The impact rang through the cavern.
Barbara’s crystal slammed against the creature’s head.
It barely slowed.
The spider drove forward.
Barbara caught one of its legs against her forearm and skidded backwards, feet carving trenches through the loose stone.
Its mandibles snapped shut around her arm.
CRUNCH.
Barbara looked down.
The dinosaur bone held.
Mostly.
A fracture crept across its surface.
“Oh, you little—”
She raised the crystal with her free hand.
Then drove it straight into one of the spider’s eyes.
SQUELCH.
Black fluid burst across her ribs.
“SCREEEEEEEEEE!”
The shriek tore through the cavern.
The spider surged forward.
Its legs climbed over Barbara’s frame.
One hooked around her shoulder.
Another caught her waist.
Then—
CRACK.
Her back slammed into the cavern wall.
Stone fractured behind her.
“Barbara!”
Rosella started forward.
Elias caught her arm.
“Wait.”
The spider pressed harder.
Barbara’s frame bent beneath it.
Her reinforced ribs creaked.
The fracture in her arm widened.
For the first time, the green light in her sockets flickered.
The spider opened its mandibles.
Barbara stared into them.
Then down at the leg braced beside her hip.
She dropped the crystal.
Grabbed the limb with both hands.
And pulled.
The spider thrashed.
Barbara pulled harder.
The joint stretched.
Twisted.
Then—
SNAP.
The leg tore free.
“SCREEEEEEEEEE!”
Barbara shoved herself away from the wall.
The spider lurched sideways.
She grabbed another leg.
Used it to haul herself upward.
Then climbed onto its back.
The creature bucked beneath her.
Barbara locked both legs around its abdomen.
“Stop.”
The spider thrashed.
“Moving.”
She grabbed the green crystal from where it had fallen between its legs.
Raised it overhead.
Then drove it down.
CRUNCH.
The point punched through the abdomen.
The spider convulsed.
Barbara ripped it free.
Again.
CRUNCH.
Black fluid sprayed across the stone.
Again.
CRUNCH.
The spider bucked hard enough to lift her from the ground.
Barbara held on.
“SCREEEEEE—”
CRUNCH.
The scream broke.
Barbara raised the crystal again.
CRUNCH.
Again.
CRUNCH.
The creature’s legs collapsed beneath it.
Its body struck the stone.
Barbara remained on its back.
Crystal raised.
Waiting.
Nothing.
Silence returned.
Black blood spread beneath the corpse.
Barbara slowly lowered her arm.
Rosella stared.
Elias stared.
Barbara looked down at the dead spider.
Then at the fracture running through her forearm.
A pause.
“I’m getting too old for this.”