The Bath

by ~thebradrant

Something about the room unsettled me before I had even dropped into it. Perhaps, I thought as I tied my rope around a pillar stump, it was how I'd become accustomed to things: the lower a place goes, the more dangerous it gets, and stepping in wolf muck because you can't see the ground isn't what I do this for. I finished tying, took a breath, and hopped backwards down the hole.

The air in the room was so dry that the first breath I took of it stung my throat. The atmosphere, I decided as I made myself swallow a glob of saliva, almost seemed incomplete; as if it didn't simply lack moisture but was deprived of it. I let go of the rope, and after hitting the floor with a soft thump, tore the flask from my belt and took a swig of water. I then looked around.

The room was neither large nor especially elaborate and, except for a shallow, circular bath in its centre, didn't really seem to have much of a character. The floor was made up of dull grey tiles; and the walls, which were bare, was of dry brown stone. I brushed my fingers against the one closest to me and found it to have a course, sandpaper-like texture. There was one exit which looked as if it lead to a passage, but it was blocked by a wall of rocks a few paces in. The bath itself showed few signs of wear, and I noted that the mosaic at its floor, which depicted the healthy but somewhat gorilla-like face of a Roman man, was remarkably well-preserved. Overall, though, there was nothing unusual about the room, and there didn't seem to be any benefit in being here. However, I couldn't shake off the feeling that there was something more to this room; and as I was contemplating the unappealing prospect of finding another route, my suspicions were validated.

With was a loud, gravelly crunch, something burst up through the bath floor. I hopped back, my pistols drawn before my thoughts had had the chance to catch up. What looked like a heavily deformed metal spider was trying to scrabble its way out of the hole it had just made. It was coated completely in dirty orange rust which scraped off onto the ground as it scratched. As it moved, I noted its legs were almost like fingers searching for a grip, as if...

The hand wrapped itself around the edge of the hole, and with another, louder crash, pulled the rest of its body up, breaking straight through the centre of the apish-looking nobleman's face and showering the basin with bits of rock. I had to consciously repress my urge to shoot. I stepped backwards, watching as it started to stumble over itself in an attempt to climb out. It was some kind of of mechanical armour, that much was clear: it was human-shaped, human-sized, and plated in extremely rusty iron, through whose gaps I could see bits of a mottled, grey body. With its ancient joints squealing horribly, it tried to stand up, but made no effort to lift its slumped cylindrical head. After a few heart-pounding, finger-hesitant-on-the-trigger seconds, it managed to scramble into an awkward dog-like stance, and looked up. It had two huge, sunken eye sockets but nothing resembling a nose or ears, and there was a deep opening where the jaw would have been, displaying, to my revulsion, a decayed upper row of human teeth.

When the disgusting thing began as if to move towards me, I raised my right pistol and shot it in the face. The bullet went straight through the flimsy iron plate, and with an unsightly burst of clumpy black fluid, out the other side. The construct flinched, and with its mechanical innards screaming very audibly, seemed for a moment as if it would collapse; then, in a sudden movement both unnatural and eerily graceful, it repositioned itself and leapt at me. I only managed a few frantic shots which glanced off of the sides of its breastplate before it reached me, and with a tremendous amount of momentum behind it, rammed me in the stomach. I flew backwards, my body thumping against the wall first, and then my head in recoil. My vision fuzzed, and a sharp spike of pain pierced my abdomen. As I struggled to stay on my feet, I noticed that I had dropped my pistols, and that some of the gloop now oozing slowly from its head and spilled onto my vest, and was seeping through it. I forced myself to look up. Through blurred eyes, I could see that construct appeared to have unbalanced itself with the impact, and looked as if it was doing a very strange dance in an attempt to keep on its feet.

With great effort to ignore how my gut felt as if it had been torn, I dragged myself to the side of my revolting adversary and kicked it hard. It fell with its arms reaching for me, and hit the ground with a loud clunk. I gritted my teeth, bit down the pain, and kicked it again. This time, the tip of my boot broke straight through its breastplate and, with a nasty squelch, hit the body within it. Immediately, accompanied by a cacophony of screeching joints the creature began to flail. It caught me in the shin with one of its rectangular, toeless feet with such force that its casing split, showering my leg with stringy black goo. I grimaced, lifted my foot up, and slammed it through the chest. I felt several weak, long-dead organs bursting under my boot, and each stomp I made caused another volume of gloop to rush out of the breaks in the armour. Gradually, it stopped thrashing and, after a moment, lay still.

I spent a moment trying to make sense of what I had just seen - and subsequently killed – before deciding that it had caused me enough stress and that I'd worry about it later. Then, trying to ignore the stink of the warm fluid that my leg was now covered in, I pulled my eyes away from it, and limped over to the hole it had first come through, picking up and reholstering my pistols on the way. I looked down, and saw not a water heating system, but the inside of a partially eroded stone sarcophagus. But I would not be deterred. I reached down, found some spots where the erosion had carved something of a handhold, gripped, and pulled. It was light, and as I continued to try and dislodge it, it crumbled at the middle. I tossed aside the half I had managed to pull out, and looked to what lay below: finally, the heating complex! I sat down and prepared to lower myself and turned, for one hopefully final time, to the being I had put out of action. It lay on its back with its horrid, rusty face turned in my direction. I shook my head, sighed, and began to climb down.

At least, I thought, nothing's going to be able to surprise me for a long, long time.