Deephouse: Further adventures involving the employees of a mid-level adventuring corporation. New to Deephouse? Start here.
“The Deep One wishes to know how many brains you offer for mineral and mining rights.”
“Brains?” Durgin Grimforge repeated the word like he’d never heard it before. He was a thick-shouldered dwarf with calloused hands and a bushy black beard. It’d only been a week since he’d become foreman of Deephouse.
He was in way over his head.
“Brains are their standard currency,” Yeji said. The gray-skinned dusk gnome was Deephouse’s counsel. “Didn’t you read the concise Underearth treatise I prepared?”
“The 100-page book you left on my pillow?”
“As I said, I kept it brief.”
They were deep underground, in a vast cavern that had only ever known darkness, sitting at an exquisitely carved table provided by their host.
The Deep One had no eyes, just a nest of mottled tentacles circling a toothy maw. It nonetheless gave the impression it was staring at Durgin.
He looked away. “Can’t we offer gold?” Not that they had any to offer.
Yeji spoke as though addressing a very stupid child. “The allure of shiny things is lost on them, being as they cannot see.”
“What if we stamp it with braille? Something like: ‘Gold is so beautiful, you’re really missing out.’”
The Deep One’s tentacles spasmed violently. Harsh barks and sudden warbles erupted from its mouth. It sounded like whales humping.
Yeji translated. “Yguijh’therc finds you amusing.”
“It can understand us?”
“Deep Ones possess a limited form of telepathy. As I explained in the document you did not read.”
Durgin tried to unthink all his thoughts about the unseemly way the tentacles writhed, which only made him think it more.
“Yguijh’therc compliments you on your brain fragrance. ‘Resourcefulness, resolve, intuition, and a smattering of sweat.’”
“Uhhh… thank you?” He tried to deflect. “What does Yeji smell like?”
Yeji didn’t translate the response.
“C’mon, Yeji—what’d it say?”
“I’d really rather not.”
“You smell like a pastry or something?”
Yeji sighed. “‘Dusty books, despair, loneliness, a hint of spoiled meat. Yguijh’therc would consume the gnome only if it had no better options.’”
It’d be funny if Durgin wasn’t so unnerved. “So… no gold?”
“Yguijh’therc requests head meats.”
Durgin drummed his fingers on the table. He felt uncomfortable with the direction this was headed, but was equally determined to successfully close his first negotiation. Minimally, he’d like to survive until its conclusion. “What about the brain of something already dead?”
Yeji blinked. “Surely you’re not suggesting roadkill.”
“It doesn’t have to be. What about graveyards?”
A meaty tentacle whacked the table. “Yguijh’therc demands humanoid meats. Fresh humanoid meats.”
“Fresh?”
“Alive at the time of consumption. They find all the writhing very stimulating.”
One of the tentacles rubbed the Deep One’s belly. “All this meat talk makes Yguijh’therc hungry.”
Durgin was suddenly very aware of its overlapping rows of serrated teeth.
“I suggest we conclude our negotiations swiftly, sir.”
Durgin agreed. But the idea of trading living brains was unthinkable. It meant conscripting people to a gruesome death in the name of corporate profits.
He wondered, not for the first time in the past week, how his life had led to this.
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