Masters of Strata (Deepest Dungeon #2) - A LitRPG series
Page 23
Now without the chain to strain against, the Fiend lost its balance, rocking forward. Martin reversed his grip on the Creedblade and slammed it down into monster’s back to keep his footing.
[Pit Fiend has suffered 26 piercing damage]
It was another tiny wound on a body that was riddled with them. This thing must have had so much health that the damage they had dealt so far didn’t even matter. It had probably hurt itself more by puffing up than they’d managed in the whole fight.
Yet, Martin did not feel hopeless. He clung onto the monster’s back with determination as it righted itself and spun around the room. From his vantage point, he could see it lift the chains. Laughter rumbled up from inside the beast. Martin could feel it through his feet. The long low rumble of delight. In an instant it was off, spinning to the back of the cavern where Martin was so sure the exit had to be and diving forward to scramble through. Martin had to run along the length of the thing to prevent himself from being crushed against the stone as it pushed and dragged itself into a tunnel far too small for it.
In the end he lost his footing on all the glutenous slime gathered around the fiend’s bulbous lower end and slid the rest of the way to land by Jericho’s side.
“What did you do?”
“Chill out. We weren’t the ones who chained him up. He’s got a bone to pick with some kitty people.”
Beyond the bloated mass of flesh up ahead, Martin could hear the screaming and retching start. They might have lost the element of surprise in his cunning infiltration plan, but softening the Felidavans up with acid was a solid solution.
The blubber-hump of the Fiend still trapped in the room by the narrow exit wiggled from side to side as the creature roared laughter and puked death on their enemies.
“Yes, all very good, mister smart man, but how do we get through now?” asked Jericho.
Martin gave his sword a couple of practice swings, limbering up.
“Oh no. I am not…”
Martin didn’t even bother to look at Jericho. “Yes, you are.”
“I am not going to…”
“We’re going to cut our way through once it has done the heavy lifting for us. And you are going to complain the whole way, but you are still going to do it, because there is no other way out of this pit.”
Jericho’s mouth opened and shut a few times, but only a protracted growl made it out.
They waited around. And waited. And waited. It sounded like the Pit Fiend was having an extremely good time on the other side of the blockage. There was a lot of feline screeching going on. Hissing sounds of both a “startled cat” and “dissolving flesh” variety.
Speckles emerged from hiding to join them. “Fat monster go slow.”
“Ah, let him have his fun. He’s been sitting around with nothing to do for ages.”
Jericho shook his head in disgust.
Fourteen
The Cat’s Nine Lies
After almost twenty minutes had passed the noise seemed to slow, as did the undulations of the fleshy heap.
Martin plodded over, lined up his first cut and then swung.
[Pit Fiend has suffered 35 slashing damage]
Three more incisions followed.
[Pit Fiend has suffered 33 slashing damage]
[Pit Fiend has suffered 31 slashing damage]
[Pit Fiend has suffered 34 slashing damage]
“Give me a hand?”
Jericho resented it, but he stomped forward and grabbed the meat cube by its edges and pulled. Together they hauled it out.
A wave of fresh liquid fat gushed out around it, coating them almost entirely. It began hardening to a waxy consistency almost immediately. Martin swiped it away from his mouth and eye so he could still breathe, but otherwise didn’t trouble himself. It was cool enough that he wasn’t suffering any damage, and, judging by the virulent secretions they’d run into so far, he figured that having some sort of waterproof coating was for the best when they went wading in.
The Fiend was wedged into the tunnel so tightly it could not even twist and turn inside its own skin. It had been so intent on killing those who’d imprisoned it that it imprisoned itself in the tunnel of stone.
Beyond the first cut, the work became even more gruesome. Gristle, bone and sinew were parted once they’d made their way past the thick outer wall of glistening blubber. Martin had to wedge the flattened tip of his sword in between the joints of broken bones to pry them apart and clear their way. Waves of noxious gasses were released from hidden pockets deep inside the Fiend, and to make matters worse there was the drumming sound of the beast’s hearts still beating away. It set the walls of this makeshift tunnel pulsating, squirting ichor from the most unexpected places.
They came upon atrophied organs as they went, and when they couldn’t push them aside they had to slice through, unleashing more and more of the putrid bile that seemed to be the monster’s primary component until it pooled around their feet, creeping up to their knees. Speckles rode on Jericho’s back to avoid it, and Martin was more than a little jealous of the little frog.
Laughter was in short supply now. The Fiend’s chortling had gone silent after the first cuts, and by the time they made it to the vast pool of acidic bile in a luminescent sac near the monster’s center, the noises had turned mournful and pleading. Martin had no sympathy for it. All the bodies in the walls bore this monster’s touch. The whole deep and the adjacent ones had become a charnel house for this one murderous beast.
Cutting at an angle around the acid sac that they had no intention of puncturing, pressing on deeper and deeper until, with no small amount of relief and disgust, Martin sliced through a wall of pinkish flesh to reveal a tunnel of sorts. Blood poured out from it, along with the chewed and mangled parts of Felidavans. A triangle of ear. A tuft of fur. Bones. Flesh. Light shone in from the other end of the tunnel, visible beyond hypodermic teeth that even now still gnashed open and shut. They had made it all the way through.
The throat was wide enough for Martin to stand in easily enough, and when Speckles hopped down he was likewise able to move about freely, but Jericho did not have the advantages of a diminutive frame. He was hunched over so far that his knuckles almost touched the river of blood.
“I am not enjoying this.”
Martin flashed him a bucktoothed grin. “No guts, no glory.”
Jericho’s grumbling was swallowed up in the rumbles coming from deep inside the Fiend. An all too familiar retching sound started to roll them along toward the mouth. “Go! Go!”
Acid boiled and churned deep within the Fiend, a green glow creeping further and further along the tunnel with each retch and heave. The three bold adventurers ran for their lives, Speckles’ arms flapping in the air above him as he went, his gargling screams almost loud enough to drown out the hurking noises chasing them.
Martin didn’t trust the Fiend not to bite down on their way out, and it seemed Jericho had the same idea. He snapped his whip forward to unleash all the Vengeance he’d stored up. The teeth ahead exploded into the chamber beyond in a rain of fragments. The soporific venom that Martin had been trying so hard to avoid surged up out of the jagged stumps. Thick and viscous, it clung to their legs, making them tingle with pins and needles as they staggered out and then dove to the side ahead of the column of acid that burst from the Fiend in a great glowing green geyser.
[MISS]
Martin fell to his knees in the ruins of the room, gasping for breath and waiting for his stamina to refill. Jericho didn’t collapse quite so dramatically, putting his hands on his knees to pant for breath. Then again, he hadn’t been the one hacking them through the Fiend’s innards.
With the last of its acid disgorged, the fiend struck a less imposing figure. One of its arms was trapped somewhere back in the tunnel, folded back against the side its body, the other ending in a messy stump inside the room where they now stood. The Felidavans had done some good work here, hacking at the thing before it could shovel them into its
mouth.
The front side of the Fiend was porcupine peppered with arrows. With every tremor of its great frame, the shafts clattered together like a round of applause. Its eyes had been put out, either by blade or claw, and added another glutinous liquid to the odious mélange that oozed all over the beast’s hide.
It was a small victory compared to what the fiend had managed to unleash on the cats in return. There were bones scattered everywhere. Bits and pieces of fur, metal and cloth that had survived the chemical warfare could only be found on the leeside of half-melted masonry and furniture. Picking through the black sludge that had been the room’s furnishings, Martin came to realize that this was something like a communal hall where the Felidavans had gathered. There was a piece of what was unmistakably a harp in the ruins. It took Martin longer than it should to drag his eye away from it.
Whatever creature comforts had been assembled were gone now. Every wave of reinforcements seemed to have met the same lethal end in the face of a foe immune to their poisoned weapons.
Damn it. Martin hadn’t wanted the Felidavan ambush gone, it would have provided them with a solid backstop as they pushed on further through the dungeon. It could take them days or weeks to regroup and rebuild. There was no way that at least some groups weren’t going to slip through, and he was willing to bet cash he really didn’t have that the Brotherhood in Exile would be one of those groups, dogging their heels all the way down.
It wasn’t that Dante was any sort of inspiring leader, he was just a figurehead for all the people that had been galvanized into action by Iron Riot’s ongoing success. Every one of the people in his entourage had probably suffered some petty humiliation in their life that this was an outlet for. They had to have suffered some sort of emotional damage to think that following Dante was a good idea.
Martin shook such thoughts from his head, he didn’t have the time to be worrying about things that couldn’t be undone. “Jericho.”
“What?”
“Kill it.”
The Wulvan cracked his knuckles. “My pleasure.”
As Martin slunk away, he could hear the steady meaty thump of Jericho’s attacks. Sometimes there was a fizzling hiss as he tried out one of his Heretic powers, but for the most part he meant to grind down the Fiend’s health with brute force alone. Martin hoped that it would be cathartic for him.
There were a great many passages wriggling off through the stone, but Martin had no time for another day of fruitless exploration. The Felidavan’s tracks were easy enough to follow through the dust on the floor, winding through a few now-empty rooms before he found the Deep Gate. Here too, some furniture had been set up so the cat-folk could lounge around in comfort while performing their duties.
A moment’s backtracking brought Martin back into earshot of the Fiend and Jericho.
“Little rat bastard.”
Rhythmic thumps punctuated every word. The constant violent staccato of fists and flesh.
“Talk to me like I am your dog.” Jericho roared with effort, and the next thump sounded fiercer than the previous flurry. “See how you like it when I treat you like filth.”
Martin stepped around the corner into the room. “Aren’t you done yet? Do you need help?”
Jericho jerked around. “I can do it.”
Martin took in the mess. Fat was oozing down Jericho’s arms in a lumpy porridge. The pallid hide of the fiend was blossoming with sickly green bruises, yet neither wolfman nor monster seemed any closer to giving out. The fiend’s stump was wiggling with as much vigor as when Martin had departed. “I have no doubt that you can, but we’re going to be late for the girls.”
Jericho threw back his head and roared. “I said I can do it.”
Predictably, Martin ignored him. Even as the Wulvan set back into the side of the fiend with all the skill and power of a trained boxer, Martin sidled by him and into the mouth. Acid was still pooled behind the remaining teeth, sizzling away at the scraps and fragments of Felidavan that were still to be found there, but the rest of the mouth seemed to be clear.
Smite blazed bright in that shadowed maw for only a second before Martin leapt into the air, sliding the full length of his blade smoothly up into the roof of the Fiend’s mouth.
[Pit Fiend has suffered 24 light damage]
[Pit Fiend has suffered 12 piercing damage]
The Fiend bucked and rocked around Martin, but there was no escape for it now. Weakened and battered, even its attempts to push him out with its tongue were slovenly.
Putting all of his strength and weight behind it, Martin tried to drag the sword along and split open the fiend’s palate, but it seemed that these inner parts were made of tougher stuff than the flesh outside. Grunting with effort, he lit up the sword with Celestial Strike and as suddenly as it had frozen in place it was on the move again, slicing through the hardened ridges along the top of the fiend’s mouth as if they were rolled newspapers.
[Pit Fiend has suffered 11 light damage]
[Pit Fiend has suffered 10 slashing damage]
The weight of the fiend’s own innards broke the roof of the mouth without those ridges, the whole brain slumping down into Martin’s reach, as soft and ready as the flesh outside. Drawing in a ragged breath he set to work on it.
[Pit Fiend has suffered 35 slashing damage]
[Pit Fiend has suffered 29 slashing damage]
[Pit Fiend has suffered 30 slashing damage]
Cut by cut, more and more of the brain died and more and more of the clear fluid within flooded down over Martin. It clogged his nostrils, and eked into his mouth. His fur matted with it. Yet still he didn’t stop.
[Pit Fiend has suffered 34 slashing damage]
[Pit Fiend has suffered 28 slashing damage]
[Pit Fiend has suffered 31 slashing damage]
When all the brain in reach was cut up he pushed through it, climbing up the gelatinous mass that he’d made to dig in deeper and deeper.
[Pit Fiend has suffered 35 slashing damage]
[Pit Fiend has suffered 35 slashing damage]
[Pit Fiend has suffered 29 slashing damage]
By the end, Martin wasn’t even sure if he was cutting or just tearing at the spongy mass with his claws. He wanted it to be over. Then, with a ping of a notification, it was.
Pit Fiend has died.
Skaife gains 2,600 experience.
Martin didn’t even have time to comprehend that little popup before the Fiend began to collapse. He had to dive right down into the gory gelatinous mess to drag his way back through into the mouth, and even there he found that every part of the Fiend seemed to be collapsing in on itself now that it had lost the strength to support its own awful weight. He had to leap to clear the lips before the whole thing folded in on itself and another great acrid gust escaped the bloated corpse.
Martin spat out a mouthful of brain. “Let’s never do that again.”
“Let us never speak of this again, either.” Jericho looked queasy.
“Agreed.”
Still trying to clear the worst of the viscous filth from his face and paws, Martin left looting the corpse up to Jericho. A subtle sign of trust after they’d butted heads so often. If it cost the guild a few silver coins to buy back some goodwill then he was hardly going to begrudge Jericho a little spending money.
Both silver and the deep key were handed off to Martin without a word. “Any gear?”
“I got new vambraces, with sleepy venom on spikes. Some for you too, Exorcist things.”
By “Exorcist things” he meant a pair of gauntlets that would replace Martin’s bracers. The bracers that he’d been consistently forgetting to use for a tiny crit chance boost in the chaos of combat for almost a week. He swapped them out before he’d even checked what they did. 100% Acid Resistance as well as an armor bonus – not too shabby.
“You don’t want to check the body yourself?”
“I trust you.”
Jericho burst out laughing. “You do not trust me to tie
my own shoelaces!”
“You aren’t wearing shoes.”
“I am speaking metaphors! You treat me and my girl like we are your servants. You bark orders. You expect us to obey. Why should we? You are nothing but tiny dictator.”
Martin’s ears perked up. “Be quiet.”
“You think you can say ‘quiet’ and I will fall silent? You think that you are…”
The arrow hit Jericho in the neck. The Wulvan hit the ground a moment later as the venom coursed through him.
Martin grabbed Speckles around the shoulder and took a dive after Jericho, using the bulk of the Heretic as a shield against the incoming fire. Jericho jerked as the arrows thumped into him. Martin shouted over the top. “You don’t have to do this. It’s already over.”
His first answer was another volley of arrows into the unconscious Jericho. But a moment later a curious voice called out. “Little mouse, little mouse, come out and play.”
Despite the situation, Martins grinned. At least they were talking. “Not a chance in hell. Why don’t you come out and we can have a nice conversation?”
“Shoot at me, will you? Little mouse?”
“Would you believe me if I said ‘no’?”
The answer came back low and lilting. “No.”
“Well then.” Martin flicked through his inventory frantically, searching for something that might help. “How about we talk from here?”
“Why don’t you come out where I can see you, little mouse, so we can talk all people like?”
“That’s going to be a no from me.”