Masters of Strata (Deepest Dungeon #2) - A LitRPG series

by G. D. Penman

  “We didn’t know you could talk. We didn’t know you were people.” Martin still had his hands held up. As if it made any difference. “We thought you were just monsters. Please. Let’s talk.”

  “No words, little mouse. No tricks.” The cat-man stalked in closer, never quite closing the distance but pressing in on Martin and driving him away from the relative safety of the wax pillars that were blocking the archers’ line of sight. “Only this. Only the end of your crusade.”

  Martin’s blood was dripping from the cat’s claws, and the brief flare of hope that he’d had that this could be resolved without violence was gone. It didn’t matter if the cat-folk were people or mindless monsters. Martin had spent his entire life tormented by people. Why should the fact they have pointed ears and fur make the blindest bit of difference? He hefted his sword, but the movement was slow and sluggish, like he’d lost a lot more blood than he realized.

  Speckles came charging in between them. The cat-folk’s arrow had been snapped off in his shoulder, but there was no sign of hesitation or hurt in the way he carried himself. “No hurt Martin. Martin good.”

  “No lies, little frog.” The cat-man crept in closer, snipping at the straps holding Speckles’ pack in place. “No slavery soon. Freedom. Remember freedom?”

  With a bravery Martin had never seen before, the Anurvan sprang past the cat-man and stood between Martin and the enemy. “No hurt Martin!”

  For his part, the cat-man did not seem all that troubled by the intervention of the frog-boy. He mostly seemed to be amused at Speckles’ antics. He let out a little chuckle, and Martin heard him all too easily. With a start, Martin realized that the sounds of fighting in the chamber had come to an end.

  He looked around for his allies, rushing to his rescue, but they were nowhere to be seen. Instead, one by one, the other cat-people slunk out of the shadows around the wax posts. Not one of them had fallen to Iron Riot’s assault. It made no sense. Martin had his one on the ropes in the first few moments, and the other classes had far more destructive potential.

  “No need to hurt, little friend.” This time, the cat-man’s smile was all too friendly. “The pit fiend’s spines, all drained dry, milk of sleep. All will sleep soundly soon enough.”

  Sure enough, that numbness Martin had at first associated with the blocked pain of Strata had continued to spread out from where he’d jabbed his hand, from where his face had been clawed apart, everywhere the claws and arrows of the cat-people had broken the skin, a deathly cold was spreading out. He tried to lift his hand but found his limbs heavy. He tried to run, only to have his feet fail and drop him at the cat men’s feet. The last thing he saw before darkness consumed him was a circle of their furred feline faces looking down at him. “No place to run, little mouse.”

  When the light blinked out entirely, Martin thought that he was dead. He tried to look around, to see the Master who usually came to mock him, or to look for the respawn timer. Neither was there. If he was turning, he didn’t know it. If time was passing, he didn’t know it. He didn’t even know that you could be knocked out in the game without being killed. It was its own unique excruciating torture. While he was here, the damned cat-people could have been doing anything to him and the others, and there was nothing they could do to stop them. His body was just lying there, empty, waiting to be abused. He couldn’t bear the thought of it.

  The fact that his human body was in the same predicament didn’t even cross his mind until he had the bright idea to log out. But then, to his horror, the menu wouldn’t appear. Martin was stuck. He was trapped in the endless void of the game with no way out.

  Panic took root in him. He started flailing, mentally demanding over and over that the menu open. He didn’t have much time. Any moment now, the Heart of Strata was going to realize that he was powerless to escape it and drag him down into the green light. He felt like he could already see it at the periphery of his vision. The telltale glimmer of light that meant the dungeon’s booming voice would soon be in his head, making its impossible demands and claiming him as its own. He had to wake up. He had to wake up right now, or it was going to get him. Wake up. Wake up.

  “Wake up, Martin!” Lindsay slapped him again, and his eye snapped open.

  “What happened?” He sat up and nearly smacked his face into her beak.

  “You lasted longest,” Jericho growled from where he was lying with his head in Julia’s lap. “You tell us.”

  “Poison. The cats had poisoned weapons, Pit Fiend venom. They took Speckles. They were only hostile to crusaders. Where are we? They were dragging us somewhere?”

  “Pit, you said?” Jericho groaned, sitting up. “This is the pit.”

  It was dark, even to Martin’s low-light vision, so it must have been pitch black to the others. The same gray stone they’d been walking by all day was still here on display, but there was no trace of wax, cracks, or decorative detail anywhere. The other three had already done their exploring. They sat huddled in their little corner of paradise, but Martin followed along the wall. It was solid stone all the way around this side of the grand pit. He could barely make out the rim of the hole they’d been dropped into at the limit of his sight, but even then he might have been imagining it. He couldn’t even begin to imagine how they’d scale the stone and escape.

  He caught a glimpse of movement up there on the rim, then a feline face poked over. “No death for you, little mouse. Only the pit, now and forever.”

  Martin’s tongue still felt a bit too big for his mouth, but he blundered into the conversation anyway. “Not that I’m complaining exactly, but why no death?”

  “You think Felidavan are fools?” Every word was stretched out and languorous, like the Felidavan was rolling every word around her mouth before she spoke. “You think we know not how Strata works?”

  “This is to stop us coming back?”

  “This is to stop your crusade.” She purred. “All are captured. All end here. All grow weary. All go to the light, never to return.”

  Martin couldn’t believe it. The Felidavans had found the only thing that could break gamers. Boredom. Martin knew that the NPCs in this game behaved oddly, and that they were aware of the story justification for some of the mechanics, but he hadn’t realized that the knowledge could shape their tactics. The AI was amazing, they behaved just like real people. It was exactly the solution Martin would have come up with for an invasion by immortal enemies with piss-poor attention spans. “Why are you telling me all this?”

  “I hear you wanted talk, I give you talk.” There was a slick sound as the lips drew back from the cat-girl’s pointed teeth. “Felidavans are nice like this.”

  If they could be reasoned with, then Martin saw no reason to fight. “We aren’t here to hurt you. We’re just passing through.”

  “Passing through to slay the Heart, to kill us all. You are still thinking Felidavans are fools. Always. Even when we beat you, you think you are smarter.”

  “Who says you beat me?” Martin’s reply slipped out before he had the time to insert some diplomacy between his brain and his tongue.

  The Felidavan girl purred with amusement. “I am up here, you are down there.”

  Even now, Martin kept digging himself deeper. “But I wanted to go down. You’re helping me.”

  “You are a funny little mouse.” The purr turned into a full-on cackle. “I am glad we did not kill you in your sleep.”

  As she pulled back Martin called up. “The feeling’s mutual, I guess.”

  Silence was his only reply.

  Back at camp, the others had barely moved. “Have you scouted out the area yet?”

  “It is a big hole. Dead end. What is there to see?” Jericho didn’t even bother to move.

  Lindsay didn’t seem much more upbeat. Julia had healed them all up, but it looked like Lindsay’s ego had taken the hit harder than anything else. “I want a cat-skin rug. You hear me? I’m putting a bounty on every one of those pussies.”

&nbs
p; Martin let out a half-hearted laugh, only to receive the full weight of Lindsay’s glare. “You think that is funny, chuckles? You got us down in this hole. Charging at the cats like they were nothing. You did this. You get us out again.”

  Silence hung over the group again. Stretching out longer and longer until finally Lindsay snapped. “Well?”

  Martin opened his mouth very carefully and replied, “I’m thinking.”

  The Felidavans were tossing everyone that came along into the pit. If they could organize a group to form a six-person-high humanoid pyramid, then the remainder could use that to escape and lower ropes for whoever was left behind. There was no telling how long it would take for enough people to arrive, and no guarantee that anyone already confined in the pit would log back in. That plan could go on the back burner.

  He pinched the bridge of his snout. “Everyone up. We need to explore, and there is no telling what else is down here.”

  Jericho didn’t budge. “I thought you were thinking.”

  “I need more information. The lay of the land.”

  “The lay of the land is that I am laying on the land.” Jericho yawned. “Rock. Walls. That is all.”

  Martin forced a smile. “Then this will be a short walk.”

  “Even when you lead us to failure, you think you can whistle and we will jump.”

  This was taking too long. Martin’s smile didn’t falter as he replied, “That’s what dogs do.”

  Lindsay and Julia both grabbed at Jericho as he lunged for Martin, but they were too slow or too weak to stop him once he was in motion. “What did you say to me?”

  “Oh good, you’re up.” Martin dangled from the Wulvan’s massive claws, making no effort to struggle. “Let’s go.”

  “I could tear you in half with my bare hands, little rat.” Jericho took one hand from Martin’s neck to grab his tail and pull it taut.

  There was no pain in Strata, but that did not mean there was no discomfort. “Would that get you out of this hole?”

  This close, the heat of Jericho’s breath made Martin’s eye water. The Martyr growled, “It would make me feel better.”

  Julia was hanging from Jericho’s arm by now, tugging at him and sending little jolts along Martin’s tail with every motion. He looked at her then back to the red of Jericho’s eyes. “Cry to your girlfriend or pay a therapist. I don’t care about your feelings.”

  With a grunt of effort, Jericho threw Martin across the room. An advantage of being small was a low center of gravity, and he barely took one tumble before he was back on his feet. “We scout the area together, then we plan our next move.”

  Jericho looked from Martin to Julia, whose grasp on his arm had gone from restraint to soothing strokes, then let out a little bark of laughter, like it had all been a game. “Of course. Scout and plan. What else would we do? Nap?”

  Behind his back, Lindsay slipped her daggers back into their sheaths.

  Six

  Wrath of the Wolf

  Progress was slow and deliberate. Working around the walls of the pit first, then sectioning off the central expanse to hunt for any conveniently placed trapdoors that would lead them right to the next deep. There were none. It was a featureless expanse. The kind of thing that Martin had assumed was beneath the Masters. For all that their work was occasionally derivative, they’d never been outright lazy before.

  No sooner had they concluded their long slow stroll around in the dark than Jericho’s grumbling started up again. “So, we have come, and seen, how do we conquer? There is nothing here. Nothing to fight. Nothing to outsmart. Stone.”

  Martin started thinking aloud. “This place isn’t right.”

  Julia cut Jericho off before he could speak, “What do you mean?”

  “Every other part of Strata is dense with detail. Even places that people would never bother to stop and look at. Even the enemies, no two of them have the exact same patterns on their skin. Everything is complex, except this pit.”

  “So, it isn’t just a hole, it is a boring hole.” Lindsay scoffed. “We get it.”

  “But why? It doesn’t make sense to design everything one way and then completely forget one area.”

  Jericho grumbled. “Is this question going to get us out the hole?”

  He shrugged. “Maybe?”

  “Maybe?” Lindsay squawked. “Maybe?”

  Light cut through the darkness. Pillars of it burning so bright that it left afterimages in Martin’s eye that he had to blink away. He was already moving before the stripes were gone. Running, really. There had been a decent number of lights, which meant a good number of people had just logged in. Maybe not enough to form a living ladder, but enough that different ideas might become viable.

  The other players had torches lit, and it made it all too simple to make them out in the darkness of the pit. The rest of the guild were lurking around the edges, but there was no mistaking the Sythvan Martyr lashing his tail around at the center of the pack. It was Dante. Which meant this was the Brotherhood in Exile. Vicious enemies that were ready to kill Martin and all his friends on sight. Perfect.

  Martin tapped his guild crest and whispered. “It’s Dante. Pick a fight. Let them win. Let them kill us.”

  “What? No… Oh!” He could almost hear understanding clicking into place in Lindsay’s head.

  Martin walked out into the torchlight without hesitation and the rabble of the Brotherhood in Exile instantly fell silent. “I can’t believe I gave you morons a day’s head start and you still haven’t solved this trap yet.”

  Dante must have been dumping points in Agility since Level One. He crossed the distance and had his bladed gauntlets up for a lethal blow before Martin said another word. Martin braced himself for the slice, but it never came. Dante had stopped in place, staring at him. Slit pupiled eyes darting from Martin’s face, to his empty hands, to the sword at his belt. Slowly, ever so slowly, his mouth opened and the needle teeth within became visible. “Nice try.”

  [Skaife has suffered 6 bludgeoning damage]

  He kicked Martin in the chest and sent him tumbling head over tail across the dusty stone. “Nobody touch the Lord and Savior of all Gamers. He’s trying to get killed so he can respawn.”

  Martin was accustomed to being underestimated. He wasn’t used to being the one to do the underestimating. Of course, it was hard not to underestimate somebody you had watched stand in the fire and screw up simple mechanics through a hundred raids. Still, if there was one lesson that the Brotherhood in Exile had hammered into their thick skulls again and again it was that Martin was more dangerous than he looked. He could use fear.

  He drew his sword with a grin. “That’s right, I just want to die. Whatever you do, don’t fight back.”

  “He isn’t going to do it.” Dante seemed to be trying to convince himself as much as the rest of his guild. Snekboi, the Sythvan knave, was still hanging around with them. The Wulvan Knight Martin had casually slaughtered back at the start of the game seemed to have dropped out, replaced by the higher-level players Dante had been poaching. Snekboi’s eyes kept darting back and forth between Martin and his new master. Dante shook his head. “It won’t help him, so he won’t do it. He’s all about progress. If it doesn’t get him ahead, he doesn’t give a damn.”

  Martin advanced on him, and could see the strain. It was taking all of Dante’s bravado to stand his ground. “I’m going to make your tendons into a rope ladder and climb right out of this hole.”

  “Ooh, so scary. Shame it’s a load of crap.” Martin was nose to nose with him now, and for all Dante’s talk of being safe, his whole body was vibrating with tension. “Our bodies de-spawn when we die. Did you think we didn’t know that? Did you think you were the only one who has been playing this game?”

  Martin was close enough to taste Dante’s breath. Close enough to bite. “Who said anything about killing you? I’ve got a healer, we can keep you at 1 health through the whole process.”

  “Hah.” Dante’s eye
s kept darting down to Martin’s sword. “Like you’ve got the guts to do something like that.”

  “It isn’t my guts you should be worrying about.” Martin sliced into him.

  [Virgil has suffered 30 slashing damage]

  The look on Dante’s face made it all worthwhile. Using that incredible Agility score, he turned and ran, both hands wrapped around his midriff and a high-pitched wail coming out of him. Still his attack dogs didn’t come rushing forward. Spell glow surrounded the feathers of one Corvan and the claws of a Sythvan to the back of their group, but nothing fired off. They were a lot more disciplined than Martin had taken them for.

  Careful examination showed that all of Dante’s ringers from other guilds had been grinding for levels when they hit the limit of their skill. Any one of them would have been enough to kill him, but none of them moved.

  With a snarl, Martin charged at the closest one. A Wulvan Knave with a pair of clubs that some bright spark had hammered nails through.

  [Alphemis has suffered 26 slashing damage]

  His sword grazed the thick brown fur on her chest before she could spring out of the way. But even once he’d made the cut, she still didn’t fight back, just dancing out of his reach, waiting for her orders from on high.

  The enemy were disciplined and professional, their emotional states were an unknown quantity. Dante’s was all too easy to read. He was the weak point in the apparatus of their guild. Hurt him badly enough and he’d panic and order them to fight back.

  “Get back here and face me, Dante! You coward.”

  At the back of the crowd a sandy-furred Murovan was casting a healing spell on Dante’s ruptured gut, stitching it up with a glowing line of light. His eyes never left Martin, not even for a moment. “It isn’t going to work, Martin. You’re stuck in this hole with the rest of us. Big-brain genius boy fell for the same trap as everyone else. You ever think that maybe, just maybe, you aren’t so much better than everyone else? Hiding under Lindsay’s skirts because you can’t talk to other people. They don’t hate you because you’re smart, asshole. They hate you because you think you’re better than them.”