Irolt is Too Loud for the God, Too Tired for the Ladder

There was no doubt about it, Franza had the best scream.

The scaley woman that Irolt had been threatening had a louder scream, but then again, it was right in his ear. He had still been grappling her when the floor gave way, and now the two enemies were clutching one another for dear life as they all plummeted into darkness.

The screams died off one by one as they all ran out of breath, until only the dog’s impressive wail echoed. Irolt refilled his lungs and was prepared to scream again before he realized that his descent had come to a stop. Confused, and too jaded to have much hope, he opened his eyes. At first it made little difference - there was no light filtering into the pit from above. Slowly his eyes began to adjust.

He could see the scaley before him, her attentive eyes flitting around, undoubtedly looking to answer all the same questions that were running through his mind.

Where are we? How did we stop? Are we all here? How do we get down?

To his left, the half-dwarf could make out a shade of black darker than the darkness they were suspended in. Relief flooded him as he recognized it to be Belthor.

“What the -”

But his friend’s question was cut short, and Irolt was hit in the face with the black cloak as the elf began to plummet again.

Irolt had his mouth open to call after him when he felt a webbed hand clamp over his face, silencing him. He let go of her, their earlier feud suddenly recalled, and he was about to shove her back when he saw what she was doing. With no sound, and one finger pressed against her lips, she was shushing him.

Not this shit again.

He did push off of her then, although he did so as silently as possible. He found he was somewhat able to choose his own position in the cavern by pulling himself forward with his arms and kicking with his legs. It was like awkwardly treading water, but with the constant threat of death just below him.

Moving gave him hope. The sight of Franza’s white fur suspended just above him gave him hope. The eventual sight of the cavern’s wall gave him hope - until he saw that it was moving. The warm, slick wall was pulsing rhythmically just before him.

Breathing.

As Irolt realized that the thing was alive, Franza was raising their trumpet and opening their mouth - much to the horror of everyone watching.

“Oh, I’m a - BORF!”

No sooner had they started to sing than they had started to fall again, and it was all Irolt could do not to call after the dog.

We fall when we make noise.

It was begrudgingly when he realized that the thief in his arms had been trying to help him, and not in fact shushing him to be obnoxious. It didn’t make him like her anymore - on the contrary it annoyed him. He wanted to go back to the days before this town, when the most annoying people in his life had been the Parliamentary and he could fight them.

He now knew what the price of asking questions was, but he also knew that if he wanted to catch up with his friends, he would need to fall some.

Or perhaps I can reason with whatever is controlling us.

“H-”

But he had barely gotten out the softest part of the word before the forces holding him aloft promptly vanished. Before he had a chance to recover from this second brief fall, he heard a voice that resonated in his brain rather than to come through his ears like any decent sound.

How do you expect to get anything done with all this noise?

The dawning revelation that he was speaking to an actual God was somewhat overshadowed for him by the unsettling way in which it was happening - as though his own thought patterns were being interrupted.

I don’t like that.

And I don’t like you.

He could have communicated to it telepathically, but by the time he’d put that final puzzle piece into place, he was already falling with his friends.

Each second that he fell, he was greeted with another piece of information that it seemed too late to put to proper use.

Franza is there.

Belthor is there.

I’m falling the fastest.

The glowstone is the only source of light.

It’s getting brighter.

The walls are getting closer.

This city is on top of nothing.

The scaley is falling too.

We’re a long way down now.

The cavern is a funnel.

It was by sheer luck and nothing else that he was able to grab onto the rung as it got close enough to his flailing hands. He hadn’t seen it, and it took him a moment to even register what it was.

“Ladder!” He called to his friends desperately. It wasn’t as though the deity could drop him any more than it already had.

He hoped that Franza and Belthor were able to hear him and grab for the ladder, but unfortunately they were able to hear and grab for him. The weight of both of them dangling from his legs made the muscles in his arms burn.

“You guys need to figure something out,” he managed through his gritted teeth. Each word was an effort, and he was already beginning to shake.

Franza, no doubt in an attempt to oblige, began shimmying up his body. He couldn’t protest, every fiber of his being was focused on not dropping them all to their fate at whatever the funnel led them into. The dog’s hind paws rested on his protesting shoulders before they were able to scramble up onto the ladder for themself.

“You too, Belthor,” he grunted.

The elf was a bit more fluid in his climb, but he was also larger than the dog, and weighed down by who only knew how much stolen loot.

By the time his friends were off of him and climbing, Irolt felt ready to collapse. Torturously he began to move upward despite the aching in every part of his body. It was less than a minute before he heard Franza express their shared concern.

“How long is this ladder?”

Irolt knew that they had been falling for a long time, just as he knew that he wouldn’t have the strength to make it if it was a straight climb straight back as high as they had fallen. He made no attempt to express these sentiments to his companions however, saving every bit of energy he had to keep moving. Ruefully, he saw at last how there was power to be gained from keeping quiet.