Masters of Strata (Deepest Dungeon #2) - A LitRPG series
Page 15
“Stop her!”
As he dashed forward to tackle the length of living stone, Jericho roared: “How?”
He bounced off her scaled hide and her momentum sent him spinning across the floor. Martin brushed the roof of the cave, then began to fall. Never one to waste an opportunity, he lit up his sword with Celestial Strike and hoped for the maximum transfer of fall damage to the enemy.
The serpent seized hold of her spear and yanked it out of the ground with a screech of metal at the same moment Martin’s sword hit her in what would have been the hip if she wasn’t snake from halfway down.
[Ophidian Sentinel has suffered 3 slashing damage]
[Ophidian Sentinel has suffered 9 light damage]
The blade gouged a lump out of her side before the glow in it died, and Martin was left dangling. The serpent head whipped around to him once more, her one remaining eye glowing down at him with malevolence, and finally he could see what was hiding in her hair. Snakes.
Each snake was rooted in her scalp, and each one had a pair of glowing eyes that flared in turn.
[CURSED: Curse of Ages]
[CURSED: Curse of Derangement]
[CURSED: Curse of Droning]
[CURSED: Curse of Entropy]
[CURSED: Curse of Frailty]
[CURSED: Curse of Suffering]
The cumulative weight of the different curses nearly knocked Martin to the ground, but despite the muscles of his arms shrinking and his coordination becoming as clumsy as a newborn’s he managed to hold on to his sword, as well as his precarious, dangling position on the snake-lady’s side. She was a pretty lady and a pretty snake. He liked how she looked. She felt cold, but that was okay, he still liked her. Most ladies he met were cold.
With a strain, he managed to break through the gray fog that had descended on his mind. He had no clue which one of the curses was trying to strip him of his intellect, but he was not standing for it. He had poured points into his will as he leveled up, and now he planned to use his force of will to hold off these effects for as long as he needed to. “I cursed. Am slow. Am stupid. Am… ugh.”
Jericho’s laugh provoked enough rage to burn away the fog. “All the curses. Hit me. Not you. Get her.”
Straining with all of his diminished might, Martin tried to pull his sword free. The serpent statue swept her spear across the room, sending the rest of the guild scampering back, but it was a small and economical movement. The twist of the torso gave Martin no momentum to work with – not that he could even remember the word “momentum” in that moment.
Pull hard, go sideways, sword come out. He repeated it to himself like a mantra to drown out the buzzing at the periphery of his senses, the sickening feeling of his mind being consumed from the edges in.
“I hate this.”
One of the serpent heads stretched down out of the statue’s hair, edging down around the curve of her chest toward Martin where he still dangled.
“I hate this.”
The snake’s jaws opened wide, and where there should have been blunt carved teeth somebody had jammed a fistful of sharpened metal barbs, jutting out in all directions, rusted and corroded with age.
“I hate you!”
Martin punched as the viper struck, his feeble swing intercepting the oncoming snake and turning it aside from its course.
[Ophidian Sentinel has suffered 3 bludgeoning damage]
[Skaife has suffered 8 bludgeoning damage]
“I hate you. I hate you. I hate you!”
His voice built up along with his will to resist. Along with all the anger that he carefully kept filed away in his logical mind. Filed under unproductive, unhelpful or outright harmful. He did not allow himself the luxury of anger, but now he had no choice but to ride it out. To use it.
“I hate you!”
His sword blazed to life with Smite, slipping out through the stone like a hot knife through butter.
[Ophidian Sentinel has suffered 21 light damage]
[Ophidian Sentinel has suffered 3 piercing damage]
Martin collapsed in a heap when he hit the ground, thumped and rolled about by the movements of the snake as she tried to slaughter his friends. Numbers flashed up in front of his face but they didn’t really mean anything to him anymore.
[Skaife has suffered 6 bludgeoning damage]
[Skaife has suffered 3 bludgeoning damage]
[Skaife has suffered 2 bludgeoning damage]
They were just words and numbers, as distant from him as he was from any of the people around him. What did it matter if the red bar that he saw when he closed his eye was getting smaller? What did it matter if three different curses were showing on that same display? Who cared, anyway? It was just some stupid game.
The thought was sufficiently alien that it shook Martin out of his reverie. Just a game? This was Strata. This was his life. This was his world. With a roar – more of a squeak – he rolled to his feet and brought another Celestial Strike down on the serpent’s stone-scaled hide.
[Ophidian Sentinel has suffered 2 slashing damage]
[Ophidian Sentinel has suffered 11 light damage]
It was taking longer and longer for the next ability to be ready. One of the curses had to be slowing it down, but he didn’t have the wherewithal to pick it out of the lineup. All he had was a sword and his rage.
[Ophidian Sentinel has suffered 6 slashing damage]
[Ophidian Sentinel has suffered 4 slashing damage]
[Ophidian Sentinel has suffered 8 slashing damage]
He hacked away at the serpent from in the midst of its coils. Surrounded by the same enemy on all sides. He didn’t need to try to hit. There was nowhere he swung his sword that wouldn’t make contact. Which was lucky, because he really didn’t have the sense to aim.
[Ophidian Sentinel has suffered 6 slashing damage]
[Ophidian Sentinel has suffered 8 slashing damage]
As abilities came off cooldown he used them without thought. He had become the gamer that he hated the most, the mindless, button-mashing moron. He launched a Javelin of Faith at point-blank range.
[Ophidian Sentinel has suffered 21 light damage]
Then followed it up with another flurry of useless strikes.
[Ophidian Sentinel has suffered 4 slashing damage]
[Ophidian Sentinel has suffered 3 slashing damage]
[Ophidian Sentinel has suffered 6 slashing damage]
“Martin!”
He could hear a voice in the distance, but it meant nothing to him. Maybe it was a girl. Maybe it was someone he knew. Maybe it wasn’t.
[Ophidian Sentinel has suffered 3 slashing damage]
Trinity Strike lit up in his mind and his sword blazed to life, driving the darkness away. Bringing him back to himself. “Hate you. I hate you.”
“Martin!” That voice. That was Julia.
“Martin!” And that was Lindsay. He knew them. “What are we doing?”
He tore his gaze away from the light of the sword and realized what was happening around him. The coils of the serpent were all around him. The sound of her ragged stone surface dragging over the scales on the other loops filled the room with a dreadful reverberation. Above him he caught glimpses of the human parts lurching backward and forward across the circle of light above him as she made lunges at the rest of Iron Riot.
He pressed his hand to the crest, rage still burning but focused now, cold and sharp. “The eyes. Snakes in the hair. Weak spots.”
“How are we meant to reach all the way up there, super brain?” Jericho. There was a fresh vein of rage to tap to maintain his clarity, one that was topped up almost daily.
Martin growled. “Coming to you.”
He cast Rebuke at the lowest of the serpent’s coils and the whole thing unwound. As the lowest coil whipped out across the room, the tower of serpentine stone came tumbling down. Collapsing in on itself.
Martin readied his Smite and thrust his sword up to meet the falling feminine form, but she flung hers
elf aside rather than allowing the blazing blade to impale her. Exactly as Martin had intended. The only way to fling herself was outward, and outward was where she was going to find Jericho and Lindsay impatiently waiting to maul her.
From the center of the stone cyclone there was nothing for Martin to see, but the others were clearly putting in the work from the cavalcade of notifications he was getting.
[Ophidian Sentinel has suffered 6 slashing damage]
[Ophidian Sentinel has suffered 6 slashing damage]
[Ophidian Sentinel has suffered 3 bludgeoning damage]
[Ophidian Sentinel has suffered 18 dark damage]
[Ophidian Sentinel has suffered 7 piercing damage]
He heard a grunt from Lindsay after the last notification.
[Ophidian Sentinel has suffered 6 piercing damage]
Then another, getting higher. She was climbing the outside of the coils even as they spun. Heading up to the head and all the critical hits that she could muster on the glowing eyes.
[Ophidian Sentinel has suffered 4 piercing damage]
Why hadn’t Martin thought of that? With the power of his Smite still thrumming inside it, he leapt up into the air to hammer in his own sword to make a makeshift handhold.
[Ophidian Sentinel has suffered 21 light damage]
[Ophidian Sentinel has suffered 3 piercing damage]
Hauling himself up was easier than he’d expected. The curses must have been weakening over time. Either that, or he was adjusting to them. Either way, he was able to climb, so that was what he did.
[Ophidian Sentinel has suffered 2 piercing damage]
He grinned as he went, buckteeth popping out the front of his mouth. They would be together at the top. They’d carve up this monstrous stone snake girl together, like the good old days.
The serpent had other plans.
She lurched out off her plinth and into the room, and the carefully arranged loops that Martin had been climbing suddenly turned into a flow headed sideways, fast.
As it turned out, Martin’s grip wasn’t as good as he’d hoped. He was flung loose of the serpent to skid into a heap, and his Creedblade went clattering across the floor in the opposite direction.
[Skaife has suffered 6 environmental damage]
Half slurring, he rolled to his feet. “Go for the eyes, crew. The eyes!”
Lindsay was making no attempt at stealth anymore, nor trying to stay out of the monster’s path. She had a look of grim determination, her beak snapping tight, a sparkle in her eyes that Martin did not like to see.
Jericho was still hammering away at the tail of the statue as it passed him by, but it seemed to do little real damage. Even when Martin staggered over in the roaring idiot’s direction to retrieve his sword, all he saw was the occasional announcement.
[Ophidian Sentinel has suffered 2 bludgeoning damage]
A golden glow surrounded Martin for a moment as Julia dumped healing into him, but there was no time to check how much he’d lost or gained in the chaos of the fight. Not with Lindsay rebounding off the far wall and charging head on at the serpent without a care in the world.
The serpent seemed delighted to finally have an easy target, and she reared up to her full height then came slamming down toward Lindsay like a tidal wave, spear ready to plunge into her little bird heart.
In that moment, Martin realized several crucial things at the exact same time.
The first was that he was not going to be able to close the distance and push Lindsay out of the way of the hit.
The second was that Lindsay showed no intention of dodging the spear, and actually looked pleased that she was about to be run through.
The third was that, while he was undoubtedly more intelligent than the other members of the guild, that did not mean they were incapable of independent thought or pursuing their own agendas.
While Martin had been trying to work out what was going on with the dungeon layout, why he was hearing a voice from its depths and their next move, Lindsay had had nothing on her mind beyond how to get her own way and go back to rescue Speckles. She did not like her authority being challenged, even if her outward response was jovial. Seeking an alternate route to her chosen goal was entirely in character for her, and if she were to die, the rest of the guild would have no choice but to return to the upper deeps to retrieve her, or face the possibility of her never making it past the Felidavans.
Martin put on an even greater burst of speed, but it was hopeless. His legs were just too short, and Lindsay was just too intent on dying. She posed in the charging monster’s path as though she was readying an attack, but Martin knew what her plan was. There could be no backpedaling from it now.
The spear was coming down. Lindsay was cawing victory, and suddenly a blur of gray fur hit her. Jericho knocked her out of the path of the spear as it slammed down, passing cleanly through his chest and out of his back to pin him to the floor.
[Jericho has suffered 64 Piercing damage]
Martin gawked at the gruesome sight for only a moment before the serpent turned her face his way. The eyes began to build in intensity again, but this time Martin jerked his head away before they could flare. He felt the same cold tingling pass over him, but received no new curse notifications.
The statue heaved on her spear, but it was embedded in the stone below. All that her efforts managed to draw out were some dying moans from the Heretic. “This is why I am tank and you are not. I know when… to die… for you.”
Jericho has died.
So dramatic.
Martin resisted the urge to roll his eye as he caught ahold of his horrified guild-leader and flung her at the spear with all his strength. No matter what was going through her mind, her gaming instincts wouldn’t let her down. She kicked off Jericho’s corpse and then sprinted up the balance beam of the spear-shaft.
Martin launched a Javelin of Faith into the statue’s face, blinding it long enough for Lindsay to complete her wild sprint unmolested.
[Ophidian Sentinel has suffered 21 light damage]
From there, the fight was won. Lindsay was in striking distance of the snakes in the monster’s hair, the remaining eye and everywhere else that she might score a critical hit. The monster might have been moving, but it was already dead.
[Ophidian Sentinel has suffered 16 slashing damage]
[Ophidian Sentinel has suffered 18 slashing damage]
A pair of snakeheads rained down next to Martin as he readied his attack then charged in with Celestial Strike bathing, them all in its sumptuous glow.
[Ophidian Sentinel has suffered 3 piercing damage]
[Ophidian Sentinel has suffered 16 light damage]
The blade sank to the hilt in the statue’s midriff, just an inch from the carefully hollowed out belly button and circle of script that surrounded it.
[Ophidian Sentinel has suffered 18 slashing damage]
Another snake head fell and plinked off Martin’s armor. He was so glad to have finally got some. Running around looking like a rodent barbarian in a loincloth just didn’t suit him.
[Ophidian Sentinel has suffered 14 slashing damage]
Another head and a bundle of stone hair fell down to the other side of him. The serpent tried to twist away and fling Lindsay from her perch, but Martin didn’t allow it. He didn’t have much bulk, but when he strained against the turn of the statue with all his might he turned a sudden flick of movement into a slow grind.
“And this one’s for that big bag of dicks Jericho!”
[Ophidian Sentinel has suffered 12 piercing damage]
[Ophidian Sentinel has suffered 18 dark damage]
The milky light of the statue’s remaining eye blinked out beneath her knife.
Ophidian Sentinel has died.
Skaife gains 1,440 experience.
LEVEL UP!
With no fanfare, the statue collapsed. The smooth surface gave away and chunks of rough stone tumbled on out of her innards. The patch that Lindsay had balanced precarious
ly on while applying the deathblow turned into a half-dozen smaller patches and then to dust, and she toppled end over end through the air, screeching at the top of her lungs.
Unthinking in his devotion, Martin dropped his sword and reached up to catch her, never quite taking into account the fact that she was far bigger than him.
[Skaife has suffered 8 bludgeoning damage]
They collapsed in a heap amidst the rubble. The spear stood proud and angled beside them, but Jericho’s body was gone. Just as all players’ bodies vanished when they died, his had blinked out in a flash of light.
Julia’s healing spells came raining down on them as she crept forward timidly, restoring the pair of them to health before they’d even found their way to their feet. “I should log out and let him know what is happening.”
Martin cursed so loudly that the other two looked at him in surprise. “He logged out. The body doesn’t vanish until you log out. If he had just waited one more minute for the fight to be over I could have brought him back! I’ve got Rite of Revival. It would have taken a few seconds. Now we have to… We’ve got to… He…”
Lindsay grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and hauled him into a hug until his breathing slowed to normal. All of this work, everything he had done to help Jericho get what he wanted and press on without a return trip. It had all been ruined because the man just hadn’t listened to his briefings. He’d willfully ignored them. Just like he ignored everything that Martin said until it was too late. That stupid … Stupid … Lindsay dragged him back in, tucking his head under her beak. “Shh. Shh. Shh.”