Dungeon Robotics (Book 5): Cataclysm

by Matthew Peed

  “Princess! We cannot allow you to do this!” they both said at almost the same time.

  My eyes narrowed. “I don’t believe I require your permission. Now do what I said.”

  I turned and jumped into the air. I didn’t have to worry about the ceiling, considering it was almost twenty meters high. Shooting down the hall, I crashed into the throne room. Father stared up at me with a crooked grin that made me wonder if it was actually my father I was looking at.

  “Dear Izora! Can’t you see?! Letting them have free will just slows you down. Together we could create an empire that spans the continent. No . . . the world!” he raved, standing with his arms outstretched.

  “For what? A world filled with mindless people who just stand around?” I asked with a snort.

  “My daughter. I thought I taught you to think further than just the surface. This may be the start, but once the world has been purged, we can start over. Ruled by a single king! A single power! We can shape the minds of future generations to our ideals.”

  “I can’t, Father. It would be wrong.” I shook my head. The amount of death and destruction he was proposing was off the scale. Entire countries would burn, and I knew that even if we succeeded, there would just be a smoldering ash-covered land. Besides, Lord Regan would never want something like that to happen.

  He dropped back into his throne, then suddenly surged with mana as purple tendrils formed around him. I knew at the center of my being that to touch one of those would be my doom. I only had a second to decide.

  “Sorry, Father!” I cried.

  I aimed my lance at him and unleashed a torrent of energy. A beam sliced through the air, slamming into his chest and quickly cutting through him and into the room behind him. If it went farther, I couldn’t tell. An explosion boomed behind him, but it sounded distant. He coughed up a tremendous amount of blood as he looked at the wound.

  He gave me a bone-chilling grin as the tendrils started to fill his chest wound. The blood quickly stopped flowing as he stood back up. “That was a good blow, daughter, very fatal. Next time, go for the head.”

  Purple tendrils shot toward me, thankfully slow enough for me to avoid. I channeled mana into my lance, and a blade formed between the two prongs. Swinging at the nearest tendril, I was able to slice it clean through. The part that was cut off dissipated into smoke, but the uninjured part regenerated fast enough that it didn’t really matter.

  More and more tendrils were forming faster than I was able to keep up with them. It reminded me of the Hydra—for each one I cut off, two took its place. Suddenly, the entire room shifted to the side and my back collided with the ceiling. It felt like the world was collapsing. Though only lasting for a second, it caused the battle to pause.

  “What have you done?!” Father shouted, turning around to peer into the hole I’d blasted through the wall earlier.

  I couldn’t help but look as well to see small explosions occurring inside. He whirled back around, his grinning face morphing into a rage-filled scowl. Mana rippled off him in waves.

  “You will join me whether you like it or not!”

  The tendrils increased their speed. I created a mana barrier almost on instinct as one slammed into me from behind. I knew I couldn’t keep this up for much longer. Concentrating on the mana blade, I quickly twisted my body and pulled the blade straight down. It sliced through most of the room—and my father, blood spraying along the cut.

  “Forgive me, Father,” I said, lowering to the ground.

  He looked at me and smiled. I could see the tainted mana trying and failing to heal him. “Sor . . . ry. My . . . chi . . . ld. I . . . lo . . . ve . . . you, Izora,” he gasped, clarity entering his eyes for a moment. The two halves of him collapsed to the ground almost in slow motion. Blood splashed, covering my boots. I could only stare at them as I tried to suppress the urge to vomit.

  Suddenly, a sense of danger overcame me, and I leaped back. I shook my head to clear it and saw that the purple tendrils were still there, even with my father being obviously dead. Hope grew in my heart that he was still alive, but what I heard next crushed that before it could even become a bud.

  “Ah! Finally. I was worried he wouldn’t be killed by one of his own flesh,” said a voice that seemed to pull my deepest nightmares from the depths of my soul. “A tedious seal requirement if there ever was one.”

  It came from where my father lay. His body twitched and twitched again as he pushed up from the ground. A purple ooze covered his face. I tightened my grip on my weapon, not sure what to do.

  “Who . . . what are you?!” I demanded.

  “Me? Me . . . what was it again? Ah, Yes. Volrudos. General of the Fourteenth Demon Division at your service,” Volrudos said.

  “Demon! What is a demon doing here?!” I asked, though I knew I should be running.

  “Forget that. The air has certainly improved in the time since the war,” Volrudos said, taking a deep breath.

  Not wanting to give him a chance to fully form, I channeled mana into another beam and aimed for his head. The beam shot toward its target in a blink of an eye. Volrudos didn’t even seem to notice the attack. Right before the beam struck him, however, he backhanded it. The beam bent and sliced through the wall to the right.

  “What the hell?!” I growled.

  “That won’t work on me. A nice little tip for you. Mana doesn’t work on demons of the general rank,” Volrudos said with a loud laugh.

  “That’s not possible!” I said, backing up.

  “I could explain it to you, but I don’t really understand it myself. You would have to talk to the geneticists,” the demon said with a shrug. “Now. Thanks to your father’s freeing me, and then your freeing me from him, I will allow you to . . .”

  Before he could continue, the world was tilted even more by a loud explosion. The ground dropped for several seconds before it stopped, resulting in me ending up in a crumpled mess. Without any other ideas, I threw Regan’s core to the ground to activate it the way he’d directed me.

  “A soul core!” Volrudos shouted from where he also lay in a pile. He still hadn’t regained full control of his body.

  There was a boom and it felt like every speck of mana in the area was being sucked into the core. Even the mana that made up Volrudos’s body was being pulled into it. If he’d still been forming his body, this would have been the best chance to destroy him before he became a true threat. I steeled myself to defend the core to the death.

  There was another explosion, and the city started to drop again. Screams from parts of the city could be heard even from the throne room. The desire to help my people warred with the need to protect the core as it was created. Hardening my heart, I turned back to face Volrudos.

  “You’re not getting past me!” I said, bracing myself.

  Suddenly, I was slammed to the ground by a massive amount of energy. At first, I thought it was Volrudos, but when I looked, I found it was the core. I wasn’t sure what was going on but hoped it was Regan saving the city.

  As I watched the core, I noticed several hairline cracks along its surface. I suddenly heard Regan’s voice yelling, “Run.” Throwing one glance at Volrudos, who was struggling to get to his feet, I kicked off and took to the sky. I smashed through a window, then accelerated toward the airship.

  I left my mystical eye active as I flew and saw one of the scariest manifestations of mana I had ever seen. Mana from both the storm that was recently formed and from the maelstrom was being sucked into the throne room, into the core. I forced myself to turn back and head to the airship.

  Slamming on to the deck, I felt the boards crack underneath me. “Get us out of here!” I ordered.

  “Citizens are still boarding!” Captain Shido yelled.

  I jumped and channeled mana into the dock. The metal bent and twisted as it threw all the people on it onto the ship’s deck. One person had a bad trajectory, and I shot after him, managing to catch him before he went too far. I turned to the tethers a
nd sliced them clear with two beams of energy.

  The airship broke from the dock and quickly gained distance. We joined and were joined by several hundred other airships. The storm buffering us slowly died as it was pulled into the center of the city. If I’d had to guess, I’d have said the remainder of the gnomish fleet was there. I just prayed that everyone that could be saved was on the ships.

  Turning back to watch the core, I gripped the railing. A sphere of unimaginable energy was forming around the center column. It had already engulfed most of the inner city and continued to grow. Suddenly, the sphere started to shrink. I thought maybe the worst was over, but then recalled the image Lord Regan had showed me.

  “BARRIER!” I shouted, amplifying my voice with mana so that all the ships could hear the order.

  Not thirty seconds later, the sphere ruptured. Jade Wind was ripped to pieces and the center vaporized instantly. I watched as the wave of energy that reminded me of the sun shot toward the fleet. I collapsed to my knees, knowing there was no way to survive.

  My link to Lord Regan suddenly ripped open, and I felt my control slip away. My body shot into the sky, mana rippling off me. I screamed as more mana than I thought my body could handle was channeled through me. A strangely shaped barrier formed around the massive explosion. The shock wave struck the barrier, but instead of taking it directly, the energy was “pushed” away from the fleet.

  Like a sword, the energy carved a path through the maelstrom. One of the whitest lights I’d ever seen poured out from within. My eyes felt like they were bleeding from the massive amount of mana I was perceiving all around me. I barely caught a flash from Jade Wind before almost all my senses went black. It was like being in a room but knowing what was going on outside. I could barely perceive the fleet.

  Even with Lord Regan protecting the fleet, several vessels burst into flames from the massive amount of energy in the area. Finally, the explosion from Jade Wind was over. Debris rained to the ocean below, unrecognizable charred masses of rock and metal. Lord Regan flew my body back to the airship, then released his control over me. I instantly collapsed to the ground completely spent. The last thing I did as the black closed around my sight was to order a search for any survivors. As futile as it might have been, I refused to give up any hope.

  Chapter 25

  Regan

  I collapsed in front of my core. When Alara reached over to brace me, I smiled at her and accepted her help moving over to my throne. I was surprised when I heard Izora’s prayer, and I was doubly surprised when I nearly passed out from the ungodly amount of mana that had surged into the sub-core she placed.

  The maelstrom was a phenomenon that was not naturally created. I learned that in almost five seconds of my core being there. Spell formations unlike anything I had ever seen were inside the storm, and it didn’t help that the storm I’d inadvertently created was also channeled into the core. There was just too much mana for the core to handle at such a level. Maybe if I’d been there personally, but the links between my cores were never able to form enough for me to move there.

  “I’m alright. Thank you,” I said, smiling toward her.

  “What . . . happened?” Alara asked with a little voice.

  She was still unaccustomed to speaking, or rather being allowed to speak. Sometimes she would go into a kind of trance. When I asked her, she told me it was how she kept a small part of herself . . . sane. She would literally tune out the world. If the Buddhist monks back on Earth met her, they would be impressed.

  “Some type of demon controlled the king. When Izora killed him, I guess the demon was freed. That’s about all I was able to make out from the memories I saw while I took control of her to create the barrier,” I explained, rubbing my head.

  “She . . . survive . . . you taking . . . control?” Alara whispered.

  “Barely. Her body was recently changed when she pulled too much of my mana into her. I have a gift for her when she comes back, though.” I patted her head while avoiding the metal crown.

  I turned my mental eye toward the north, where the entrance tunnel to my main dungeon was. Now there was a smoldering city. I didn’t have much time to really do the calculations to move everything “gently,” but most of Jade Wind’s living sector was still intact, if a bit roughed up.

  In the instant the bare minimum link formed, I was able to sense all the life still remaining in the city. Nearly three hundred thousand people and another fifty or so thousand on the airships. I couldn’t just let all those mana batteries die like that. Seriously, since Izora treated me like a god, then I needed to do godly things every once in a while.

  Alara nodded and sat on my lap. Ever since her core recovered to that of about High tier one allowing her to be able to re-form her avatar, she hasn’t left my side. Much to a certain fairy’s disappointment. Lena hadn’t left Alara’s side for the better part of two days while her core recovered, but Alara only stays near me. Alara’s dungeon was all kinds of twisted right now, and she was slowly reclaiming it. Given the size and amount of taint, it would take several weeks if not months to get it more aligned with the actual Alara.

  Of the current mysteries left unsolved was the issue of the specter queen. Alara told me she’d never made it down to the bottom floor. Alara had lost track of her, but she wasn’t confident in her ability to recall everything that was happening. Many times, the orders from the necromancers had left her in a fog or haze. Not to mention the fact that having to restart her compounded the issue, to put it gently.

  I refocused and tried to feel the link between Izora and me and breathed a sigh of relief when I found it still intact. It was weak, but that was only to be expected. I would have to think of ways to handle her current situation. Preferably, Louella could offer the gnome race sanctuary.

  “What should we do about the north ?” I asked, more to myself then Alara.

  “Destroy . . . them!” she replied with more energy than I had heard so far.

  I patted her head. “Of course. My only concern is that with the state Lecazar is falling into, the leadership of the necromancers will be even harder to track down.”

  “Necromancers . . . puppets. Cassin . . . real threat,” she whispered.

  “So, our information was correct. We need to hunt a Celestial then.” I rubbed my chin in thought.

  “Easy . . . for . . . you,” she said and turned her face up to me. Even though her expression was emotionless, I could still sense the smile in her words.

  I grinned at her, then laughed. “Easy as pie.”

  I noticed her eyes were drooping, so I picked her up and carried her over to a massive bed, placing her down gently when I realized she was already asleep. She had a lot of recovering to do, in more ways than one. Just the damage to her core would take months to repair. I couldn’t even imagine the damage done to her mind, and that was something that I doubted would ever truly be repaired.

  Walking back to my throne, I did something I hadn’t done in a few months. I flooded my main dungeon with my mind so that I could get an accurate read on everything. I was going to have to rebuild as well as expand. My dungeon was really good at testing mortals, but when something that was just too overpowered tested me, they were able to bulldoze through the floors with ease.

  The upper floors were throwing my senses out of whack, but with a little brute force I made it work. To put it simply, they were completely gone. I would have to completely re-create them. While I had the town automata protecting the entrance, I was glad the Louella had ordered the Adventurers Guild to restrict access for the time being.

  Moving to the deeper floors, I found most of eleven to fifteen were damaged but repairable. I needed to consider when I did the makeover if any new changes would need to be made. I was surprised the fort on floor nine had survived with so little damage but was glad all the same.

  Ignea took control of the dungeon before the invader reached the goblin city. There was no damage to that other than the bit that was hit by Nova
’s attack. After that was the asteroid mine. It had received little actual damage, but the number of asteroids that were lost would take a while to replenish.

  I ran into another problem. With my mana so slow, my resource floors were taking longer to “regrow” the materials. I must have never noticed with my mana levels so high. All my sources of mana were flowing into me, but with so many of my forces in the north, large amounts were being siphoned off to keep them from being tainted.

  From there the rest of the floors were unharmed and intact. The beastkin colony that now numbered close to ten thousand was unaware that the dungeon was even attacked. Looking over the various other islands, I could see that everything else seemed to be fine. The only thing that caused me to pause was that Reed’s body was missing.

  The spell script around where he’d been stored was also damaged. It looked like it was from the outside. I frowned as I considered the situation. Surely, Morka’s attack wasn’t a diversion to get his body. I mean it had been in my possession for months now. I would have to review the dungeon cameras later to see if they caught anything. I decided to put that off for now and move on to something else.

  “Ignea,” I said.

  A moment later a little circle formed in the air in front of me. My fairy popped out, looking happier than she had in a while. With this last event, I was truly glad to have her watching the fort.

  “You called, Father?” she asked, bobbing in the air.

  “Yes. I wanted to thank you for protecting the core. Without you commanding the home fort, all might have been lost. Even with my sub-cores, I don’t want to risk my main one being broken. So again, thank you,” I said, reaching out to pull her in to a hug.

  “Father! Of course! It is my duty to protect the core, after all,” she said with a blush covering her metal cheeks. I wasn’t even sure how that was possible.

  “When someone does something good, you should never be afraid to praise them,” I replied, patting her head once I let go of her.