11 Advancing To The Rear

Cody didn't stop until he had backtracked quite a ways into the catacombs. He came to a stop in one of the small rooms he had fortified several days before and began to think more seriously about his predicament. He was trapped in the most difficult dungeon he'd been in to date, alone, and no one could get to him. He had enough food and water for another day or two, and about the same in batteries for his headlamp.

Adrenaline was still pumping, and Cody struggled to calm himself. {What am I going to do? I have to get through that room quickly...}

Cody leaned against a damp wall and slowly sank to the floor. He felt exhausted, his clothes were sticky with blood, and he knew he just needed to rest. {A few hours of sleep and I'll feel right as rain.}

Cody blinked, and his eyes opened to blackness.

It took him a few moments to realize he had fallen asleep with his headlamp on and woke hours later in the pitch black catacombs. As he groped for his pack to find more batteries, a scurrying sound nearby caused him to freeze and his breath caught in his throat. Cody was motionless, stooped over his pack, straining to hear the soft, padded tapping on the hard stone floors. It was coming closer. There were too many soft scurrying taps, it had to have more than four legs, and a shiver went down Cody's spine as his mind realized the sound, it was one of the giant spiders. His sword was lying behind him on the ground, but without light he wouldn't be able to do anything with it.

{I have to get the batteries without it hearing me.}

He tried to unzip his pack as slowly and quietly as he could, but as soon as he pulled on the zipper the tapping sound instantly stopped.

{This is getting worse and worse...}

Cody was beginning to panic. He couldn't kill the spider easily without being able to see it, and he didn't know what kind of venom some otherworldly giant spider would be packing. His mind raced as he tried to find some kind of solution. He knew that just beyond his pack was the wall of broken, splintered furniture that he had assembled into a makeshift barricade. {Am I strong enough shove it all at once?}

A loud hissing sound erupted from above and Cody shouted at the top of his lungs as he sprung forward to shove the fortifications away as hard as he could.

With both hands, Cody flung the heaping pile of rubble across the room. The catacombs rumbled and shook as a crashing, snapping sound reverberated off the walls. He could feel objects striking the back of his body and head. Cody sensed that he was being pulled along with the rubble and he scrambled to change his footing to keep from pitching forward himself. The hiking pack fell forward and was resting against the back of his legs, almost taking them out from under him.

Cody stood taking large heaving breaths as he tensely waited. Minutes passed in the dark room. The only sound that broke the silence was the occasional clatter of a dislodged stone or a piece of settling debris.

With shaking hands, Cody reached down and fumbled with his pack to find the batteries. After some struggling, he clicked on the headlamp and was finally able to witness the devastation.

There was a massive pile of splintered, shattered rubble piled against the far wall. The room looked swept clean as every grain, pebble, and stone had been flung against the far wall. Lying on top of it all was the body of the largest, hairiest black spider that Cody had seen in the catacombs. He took a few steps closer to inspect it, but it mostly resembled a smashed watermelon with its guts gushing out of both sides of its body. {What the hell was that? Did I cause an earthquake or did an earthquake just happen to occur at the exact same moment I attacked?}

Along with the spike of adrenaline, the sudden danger of the attack had passed. Cody was unsettled by the thought of earthquakes while he was underground, but he didn't have any alternatives to moving forward.

He began sifting through the rubble to find his sword that had been lost in the chaos. As he worked, he began formulating a plan in his mind. {If I couldn't defeat a boss in a game, I would have two choices: grind out more levels and get stronger so I could defeat the boss, or keep trying different strategies on the boss until you find out how to beat it.}

Cody had nearly cleared the entire dungeon. {How much stronger am I really going to get fighting giant spiders and overgrown rats?} He didn't have any other choices; He had to keep trying to clear that last room in the catacombs. Cody was certain he was missing something.

{I'll whittle them down. I can rush in, try to demolish a few at a time and run out if it gets too rough. Eventually, it'll just be me and the boss.}

Finally uncovering his sword in the mess, Cody slung his pack on his shoulders. He began retracing his steps, descending deeper into the catacombs and mentally preparing himself for the fight he had left behind.

It was a much longer walk back then he remembered. Cody had fled in a panic and hadn't really kept track of the distance, he just wanted to get away. A tight, anxious knot began to rise in his chest as he walked closer to the end. {Will anyone ever figure out what happened to me if I fail? Will I just become another skeleton in this crypt?}

At last, he hopped down a long staircase and could see the room ahead. The door was still ajar and inside he could make out the ranks of skeletal guards flanking each side of the room. The large, robed skeleton was again seated on the throne, his head hanging down. {It's a Lich. That's what those were always called in video games. They can resurrect other skeletons and usually have magic.}

For the first time, Cody envied the nerdy outcast kids in high school that played tabletop role-playing games. {They would probably know exactly how to deal with this.}

He stopped short at the threshold of the room and waited, watching for some kind of movement. When there seemed to be no reaction to his appearance, Cody dropped his pack and took a few deep breaths, trying to psyche himself up.

{Here we go!}

Cody lunged into the room, swinging his sword with both hands like a baseball bat.