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

by G. D. Penman

  Out in the lake of wax, Martin could see his Wulvan companion flailing about, deaf, dumb and blind. “Swim straight ahead.”

  Even at this distance, he could see Jericho’s head jerk up at the sound of a voice in his head. His wild flailing turned into deliberate motion a moment later, wading through the wax and out onto the shore.

  Martin had no time for niceties. He climbed up Jericho in a scrabble, digging his toes into the softening wax to make footholds until he was high enough to reach for the big man’s face. Finally, the pointed claws at the ends of his fingers seemed to serve a purpose. Martin dug into the wax at either side of the Wulvan’s jaws, pressing through until he felt the course hair, and then put a foot on Jericho’s chest to push off with all his might.

  The whole mask of wax came away in one piece and Jericho gasped in air even as Martin fell at his feet.

  [Skaife has suffered 3 environmental damage]

  Laughing, Jericho reached down with a hand outstretched to help him up. “You look like garbage.”

  Martin took that hand and let the giant of a beast-man haul him to his feet. “I feel like garbage.”

  “You have any healing for me?” Jericho groaned as he gave a stretch, flex and shiver to clear the worst of the wax off his massive frame.

  A blink gave Martin his answer, even if he didn’t like it. “Not yet. But the cooldown isn’t that much longer, and we’re out of the Fiend’s range.”

  Which was the moment that the Fiend chose to disgorge the contents of its guts in their direction. At first it just horked up a few lumps of what was unmistakably Felidavan flesh, complete with patterned fur and exposed bones where they’d been well chewed. But after that initial clearing of the pipes, what emitted from its gaping mouth was a fire-hose torrent of wretched green bile. Such vast quantities of it that Martin was amazed the whole creature wasn’t deflating.

  It tracked a line across the stone floor of the cavern, and Martin and Jericho both had to leap aside or be drenched in it. The spray went on and on, but the Fiend seemed to have locked its attention on Martin this time. The spray followed after him as he scrambled to his feet and ran, and the only recompense that he could think of was that at least it gave Jericho a chance to recover before the next clash.

  With a last few grotesque splutters, the flow of effluence cut off, trailing back across the stone to dribble down the Fiend’s front. Everywhere the stone had been touched it was bleached white and puckered pock marks appeared on its surface. Martin prodded at it nervously with the tip of his Creedblade and jerked back suddenly as the stone gave away like pudding.

  “Watch out. It’s acid. The floor is wrecked.”

  “You watch out! Big boy wants to make you a tasty snack.”

  The Fiend was rushing forward again, even though there was no way it could get past the reach of the chain. Unless it spat acid on its own chain. Maybe Martin was giving it too much credit. Maybe it was as dumb as it looked.

  He readied a Javelin of Faith and bowled it overhand into the Fiend’s bloated gut.

  [Pit Fiend has suffered 24 light damage]

  For a moment Martin thought he’d arrested its progress, but he was deluding himself. The Fiend hadn’t even noticed him. It was just at the end of its leash. As the chain jerked it back, the Fiend’s lower body slipped forward. Then, with some awful strength Martin couldn’t even imagine, it pivoted on the axis of that chain, slamming both its gangly arms down.

  It vibrated harmlessly through the floor, and Martin let out a nervous laugh. For a moment there he’d thought they were dealing with some cartoonish earthquake attack. That was when he realized the Fiend was pivoting again, using those fists on the ground to lift the impossible bulk of its body up into the air.

  “Oh no.”

  When the body hit the floor, solid stone gave away. Everywhere the acid had sprayed turned to a paste and fell away. The ripples of it threw up waves of wax in the lake, so high that they had time to harden in peaks before they slipped away beneath the surface.

  They needed to regroup. Separated like this, they had no hope of taking the Fiend down. All they were doing was reacting. Not acting. Always on the defensive. There was no way to win when they were always on the backfoot. Martin took a running jump over the line that the Fiend’s acid had eaten away and then lost all control of his body in mid-air when he looked down.

  Beneath the stone surface, packed in so densely that Martin could scarcely understand how the pressure hadn’t cracked the rock, were the bodies. Every one of the races that you could play were on display. Every one of the races they’d met on their journey into the dark were packed in there too. Anurvans were cheek to cheek with Wulvans and their rotten furless tails were coiled through the eye sockets of Felidavan skulls. Displaced Corvan bones jutted out through Sythvan hide and the full corpse of a Murovan had been crammed inside the chest cavity of what looked like some sort of crocodile man. There were more animal people there than had even been hinted at in the game. All here. All dead.

  Martin pressed his eye shut and completed a roll to his feet safely on the far side of the gap. He couldn’t think about it right now. He needed to maintain focus on the crisis at hand.

  Jericho loomed up out of the dull glow of the lake ahead, rage plastered across his face. “He spits at me?”

  “Mostly at me so far.”

  “I am too good for his spit?”

  “At least you’re consistent.” Martin snorted as he launched another Javelin of Faith into the dangerous side of the room. The side with an intact floor.

  [Pit Fiend has suffered 24 light damage]

  “I am thinking we kill this thing fast, yes?”

  Martin nodded his agreement. The Pit Fiend had retreated far enough into the shadows that he couldn’t make it out by the wax lake’s glow. Even with his low-light vision. “That would be good.”

  “How?”

  This time, they both recognized the horking sounds of the Fiend before it could begin disgorging acid their way. “Together!”

  They bounded over the gaps the Fiend had burned into the ground on the last pass, leaping and sprinting to stay ahead of that steady stream of vileness. Jericho outpaced Martin after only a moment of running shoulder to shoulder, then seemed to realize his mistake. Reaching back, he caught Martin by the front of his armor and flung him ahead. Tucking into a ball, Martin cleared not one but two of the great corpse pits that had been opened up in the floor, rolling to his feet on the far side at the same moment Jericho caught up to him.

  It gave Martin an idea. As long as they were at a distance, the acid attacks would go on until there was no more floor to stand on. Closing the distance and putting himself at the mercy of the Fiend’s movements didn’t seem like a great plan either. He needed to get off the floor but close the distance. He needed…

  “I need you to throw me.”

  “Yes?” Jericho sounded positively delighted at the prospect. He’d probably been waiting a month for an opportunity like this.

  Martin took off running and Jericho bounded along after him, an unmistakable grin on his face. They crossed over the invisible line between the safe and unsafe halves of the room, and even though there was no clear delineation, it was obvious that the Pit Fiend knew they were in reach. The torrent of acid had already slowed, trickling down its many chins, and now it lumbered their way. “Get me as high as you can. The eyes look like an obvious weak spot, but even if they’re not, higher is safer.”

  “Do not worry, my friend, you shall be so safe.” A massive hand closed on the back of Martin’s neck, and his gigantic companion hoisted him into the air, spinning him like a shot putt. “Air Jericho is happy to report no accidents this year.”

  Martin groaned under his breath. “Gods below.”

  There was no jolt as Jericho launched him, the spin up to launch ensured that it all felt like the same nauseating bout of vertigo. He was soaring through the air before he was even fully aware that Jericho had let him go. Still spinn
ing around and around with all his limbs splayed involuntarily. Another involuntary action was the squeal he let out.

  He hit the pillowy flesh of the Pit Fiend side on, and had to scrabble for a grip as it seemed to slip away beneath him. He resorted to digging his claws into the flesh to stop himself sliding. He didn’t dare touch the obvious grips of the poisonous spines. He was a short distance below the arm on the Fiend’s right side, much higher than he had anticipated Jericho getting him. He was going to have to check in on his colleague’s stat progression more often. If the lumbering Heretic was strong enough to fling him this high, he could think of a lot of other uses for all that brute force.

  Claws, teeth, whatever he had to use, Martin brought to bear against the putrid flesh of the Fiend so that he could gain height. Whatever it was doing up above him and all around him, he could not see from this angle. He just had to do his job and hope Jericho could survive the onslaught.

  As he came up on the armpit and the bulbous flesh loomed out in an overhang above him, the Fiend lurched to the side, chasing Jericho or Speckles, lashing out with both its spindly arms and the yellowed claws at their ends.

  Martin lost his grip.

  For one awful moment he was weightless, hanging in the air as he realized what was happening. The next he plummeted. There was no time for rational thought and planning. Only the sudden movement of his hands, operating on instinct to draw his sword and plunge it into the Fiend’s side.

  [Pit Fiend has suffered 28 piercing damage]

  His descent halted abruptly, but just a moment later he started to slip once more. His claws and teeth had nicked the skin, but none of his desperate scrabbles had made it through before now. The Fiend did not bleed from the wound Martin had made, it oozed. Liquid fat dribbled out, waxy and viscous. The sucking grip that a wound normally had just wasn’t there, and Martin’s sword began to slip free as the whole side of the skin sloughed down at the press of his weight.

  Someday, Martin hoped to meet whichever Master had designed this thing and slap them.

  The thrust of his sword had slowed his fall enough that Martin could start to find traction again, but with the slippery fat bubbling out above him and running down it was doomed to be short-lived. Hauling out his sword seemed to slow the ooze a little, but it left Martin in an even more precarious position than before with only three clinging limbs to support him.

  Blinking his eye shut and trying to ignore the way his stamina was dwindling, he shuffled through the menus, feeling the skin between his fingers distorting and slipping away. There in his equipment was his old sword. When he opened his eye it was in his hand and he was falling back.

  With a kick of his feet, he brought both swords forward into the Fiend.

  [Pit Fiend has suffered 9 piercing damage]

  [Pit Fiend has suffered 16 piercing damage]

  As soon as they punctured the Fiend’s skin, fat bubbled out and Martin began to slip, but it didn’t matter, he had a plan now. As he drew one sword out he contorted and twisted to bring up his leg, kicking his foot into the oozing hole.

  Another frantic kick from there launched him up to land another blow in the Fiend’s side.

  [Pit Fiend has suffered 16 piercing damage]

  Then another.

  [Pit Fiend has suffered 27 piercing damage]

  Finding his fat-slicked rhythm he began to climb again.

  [Pit Fiend has suffered 14 piercing damage]

  Floundering and slipping every step of the way, sliding back down every few blows when his footing was too slick.

  [Pit Fiend has suffered 25 piercing damage]

  Yet still he was making progress. He passed the top of the arm, then he was up onto the smooth curve of the shoulder.

  [Pit Fiend has suffered 15 piercing damage]

  Scrambling to his feet, sliding around everywhere, he ran as fast as he could to the head. It was not very fast.

  When the Fiend turned its head, Martin could swear that it was grinning. Those needle teeth had been on display the whole time, but now he felt like there was some malevolent intent behind them. A suspicion that only grew as it drew its sore-crusted lips together for the first time. Above those lips, he could see the dripping nostrils seal shut too. What could that…?

  With the sound of a distant concussion, every one of the spines hidden beneath the Pit Fiend’s skin shot out. It was like a puffer-fish inflating, but inside some great balloon. Martin had to fling himself aside to avoid being impaled by one shooting right up toward his crotch.

  [MISS]

  He wasn’t penetrated by the venom-oozing spike, but he did lose his footing. That was as likely to cost him his life as any number of poisoned spines. As the spikes broke through the skin, so too did a fresh deluge of fat, pouring in thick rivulets from every hole. The slippery ooze of the sword-wounds were nothing compared to this lumpy flow. Martin was tripping over it as much as slipping in it.

  Bouncing off one spine after another as he slipped, Martin could feel exhaustion creeping over him. There was no tiring in Strata. Stamina declined, but these bodies did not drain. It was unnatural. It was wrong. That sense of wrongness was enough to alert Martin that something was wrong. He should not feel that way. His movements, already so clumsy, became even more so as he became sluggish.

  The venom of the Pit Fiend. It must have been numbing his wits as much as his body. He had no broken skin that he could see, but beneath the slathered layers of fat, fur and wax it was impossible to tell. Half his skin could be open without him ever knowing about it at this point. Even without direct access to his blood, the venom was having an effect on him.

  Blinking hard against the encroaching shadows at the periphery of his vision, Martin lit up his sword. Celestial Strike helped to drive the shadows back, if only for the first moment when it blazed to life. He twisted as he slid, a graceful pirouette on the rink of molten fat, carving cleanly through the next spike.

  [Pit Fiend has suffered 9 light damage]

  [Pit Fiend has suffered 8 slashing damage]

  The venom sprayed in an impressive arc that Martin had to duck and dodge to avoid. He was still slipping away, the face getting ever more distant as he slid down the gentle slope of the shoulder and then the dead drop to the stone. Emphasis on the dead.

  Another spike loomed up, and this time Martin had enough time to think. Tossing his old sword aside he cast Rebuke directly at the spike. The hit of the spell did little more than rock the massive Fiend’s shoulder, yet for a rat on that shoulder it made a world of difference. He skidded back up the length he’d lost.

  Those scabby lips were still pressed shut as Martin came skidding back toward them, and this time he did not pause or falter. As soon as his feet were beneath him he dug in the claws of his toes and charged.

  His sword flared with Smite this time. He didn’t even try for the eyes, a creature as small as Martin didn’t have a hope of reaching so high. There were plenty of other targets in range.

  [Pit Fiend has suffered 24 light damage]

  [Pit Fiend has suffered 16 piercing damage]

  The blazing blade slipped easily through the Fiend’s puffed-out cheeks, and Martin was knocked right back onto its shoulder by the explosive expulsion of trapped air.

  It reeked of sulfur and bile. Flecks of the same acid the beast had been belching earlier filled the air, nipping at Martin’s eye and skin. Not enough to do damage, but another of the endless sensory bombardments that Strata offered up instead of pain.

  The seal was broken and the Fiend deflated with a whoopie-cushion noise as the tattered fringes of the wound in its cheek flapped. The spikes withdrew back inside the putrid flesh, leaving yet more fat dribbling out everywhere that Martin looked.

  Still in shock, the fiend couldn’t even focus enough to bat him off its shoulder properly. Instead, it franticly beat at its arms and bulbous chest with those spindly arms, missing Martin entirely but setting the whole frame rippling in waves as the subcutaneous ocean shifted about
.

  With no other option, Martin rode the wave, letting it carry him up and over onto the wide slope of the fiend’s back. As it bucked and rolled, he caught a glimpse of the collar where the chain was nestled. This whole monster was a problem of scale. If it were smaller, then the chain could have been used against it. They’d have had it strung up within minutes. But because everything was so big, all of his usual plans wouldn’t work.

  He had limited resources to deal with this monster, Jericho wasn’t familiar enough with his Heretic setup to be all that useful, and for all that Martin was doing well now it was just a matter of time before the Felidavans showed up to start peppering them with arrows.

  Even with a monster this size, that was Martin’s primary concern. The fiend just made so much damned noise, sloshing and belching about, not to mention the clanking of the chains.

  The chains. That was it.

  Martin took off for the collar. “Jericho, can you get around it?”

  For one awful moment there was no response and Martin wondered if the Wulvan had died in the chaos as the Fiend sloshed around, but then the growl came through. “How could anyone get around this thing?”

  “If you can’t get by it,” Martin hefted his sword. “Then go hide.”

  “You joke?”

  Trinity Strike blazed to life, the crackling hum of it almost drowning out Jericho’s voice.

  [Pit Fiend has suffered 4 slashing damage]

  [Pit Fiend has suffered 5 light damage]

  As thick as Jericho, there was no hope of cutting through the chain any time soon, but the collar on the other hand was only rough-stitched leather.

  Martin’s glowing blade bit through the flesh on either side of it, unleashing another wash of fat, but there was no mistaking the distinct snap as he carved through the leather. The chain fell loose in an instant, gore-soaked leather flapping after it and nearly slapping Martin from his perch.