Fingol’s Fantastic Underground Tour of the Unknown
“Greetings one and all and welcome to the Monster tour here in the city depths! I am your humble guide, Fingol. Please only step where I step and if you see me running, try to keep up!” Only two feet tall, covered in small red scales, wearing a disheveled hat adorned with a large feather and ill-fitting clothing altered to let out his tail, Fingol was the least intimidating kobold below the streets. The strange creature came highly recommended to Raymond. A kobold giving monster tours of the undercity was the perfect way to end a bar crawl.
The small creature bowed to his clients. For only two coppers this adventure seemed like a great bargain, Raymond thought while his friend, Hershal, was “watering the plants” in the sewer nearby.
Fingol’s unbooted feet splashed in the dank sewer water among the brickwork, punctuated by the sounds of dripping from above and a distant rush of waste far below.
“So, you do these tours often?” asked Raymond. A buzz from the night’s drinking filling his ears and the quiet spaces.
“All the time! I haven’t lost a group yet,” responded Fingol, his reptilian teeth glinting in the glow of the green stone he carried to light their way in the dark. “Not a lot of repeat customers, always new faces!”
The trio continued into the depths before Fingol called for them to halt. In the center of a junction was a large, deep cistern.
“We must be quiet with this beast. The ‘grabby many arms’ lives here which is why we brought Mr. Rattigan!” Fingol pulled a fat rat out of a box on his hip.
Raymond and Hershal leaned in, looking with piqued interest at the rat: common by most standards. Both were quite alarmed when Fingol tossed the rat into the center of the cistern. After a few moments of quiet, the floating, now waterlogged, rat looked irate for being tossed in so carelessly until multiple pale humanoid arms rose up. Surrounding a central mass of teeth and eyes, they grabbed the now screaming rat. The men stood terrified for a few heartbeats until they realized Fingol was sprinting down the corridor. They tore after him to avoid the same fate as the poor Mr. Rattigan.
Just out of sight of the cistern stood Fingol, fidgeting with his feathered hat, “the beasties always like eating those rats, better them then us, right?”
“What the hells was that? Was that your plan, let it eat us if we had not run? If this is some sort of trick, we will toss you to whatever that thing was!” raged Hershal, spraying wine-soaked spit at the small creature.
“Now, now, you paid for a tour! You are getting a tour, many of these monsters are going to be dangerous, you survived great!” Fingol offered.
Hershal grabbed Fingol’s hat, ripping the feather in the process. “You get us home safely, now! That was too wild,” the man slurred, holding the hat ransom.
The small creature looked at the hat, eyes no longer darting between the two men. After a few tense moments, the sounds of distant splashing grew still.
“Fine, no more dangerous creatures. I will get you home in one piece,” he said, uncharacteristically calm and collected. His eyes locked onto the feather, a gift from long ago, now broken and mangled in the hands of the surface man.
Fingol led the two men up from the sewers, passing more cisterns and corridors with small kobold-sized tunnels cut into them. They crept into a massive underground atrium with a glass dome touching the surface and sending in the sun’s rays. The once lovingly tended plants had grown wild, blessed by the light above. The room was balmy and the trio could hear a voice. “Eat up my little ones, I brought plenty!”
Following the sound, the trio found a small pond with a viewing bench by its side. A man sat there with bandages on his eyes, tearing bits of meat, tossing them onto the shore of the pond and calling out to his pets. The men breathed a sigh of relief, seeing that this was no monster, just a man, and a blind one at that.
They took a wider look around and noticed there were sculptures. Raymond went to investigate, “Hershal, mind the little one, don’t lose sight of him. Hey, who sculpts scared people screaming,” asked Raymond. He touched the stone face of a large orc, fear filling its face. At that moment, Fingol closed his eyes and smirked. A large lizard popped out of the water and hungrily devoured the meaty bits.
Hershal approached the lizard and locked eyes with the beast, “hey now, what gives…”
Raymond watched as Hershal seized up, his skin and clothing turning gray.
“No!” shouted Raymond, watching his friend of years turned to stone. He ran to him but found Hershal was cold, lifeless. He looked for Fingol and saw the little smirking beast across the way in another doorway and, in a rage, gave chase.
“I’ll gut you for this!” he yelled, leaving the blind man and his blinding lizards behind. With every turn and corridor, Fingol stayed just out of sight.
Corridors blended, some revealing small fires behind curtains painted to look like stone, others revealing teeth and eyes. Raymond lost sight of Fingol and had no recollection of where he was. Quite sober now, his eyes focused on a green light in a chamber ahead of him. Raymond approached cautiously. Realizing he left his sword somewhere; he balled his fists.
“You will pay for what happened to Hershal!” he warned. The illuminating green stone lay on the floor with the feather from Fingol’s hat draped across it. Raymond dropped to a knee to investigate and heard movement as a spear painfully pierced his side. Seeing a flash of scales and teeth, Raymond fell on his back as small blades gave way to numbness as Fingol and family came to feast.
Cover Art by Morgan Kostelnik
Short story written for Writing Battle Wonder 2025
