Akashi's Will

by Kaden Reed

  I could hear all three behind me react in alarm. Jax called out, “what is it? What do you see?”

  “I don’t know,” as it got closer, I could start to make it out, “it is something with blue and black mana.”

  “Two?” Jax sounded alarmed, “that is stronger than should be in this section. Everyone fan out. We will meet it here.”

  A few moments later a glowing rank popped into existence which chilled me to my core, “B3,” I uttered to the group, “the approaching monster is rank B3.” Looking around and seeing their blank faces I realized that they didn’t have any knowledge of how powerful that really was. “Jax is rank B6. Just so you all are on the same page, the centipede we just fought was E3 and it put up a good fight. I get the impression that the monster’s ranks are on a different scale than ours. Since they are generally bigger and stronger than we are I think they have an inherent advantage in combat. From what I can understand, the ranks that I can see are based entirely on the amount of energy inside someone’s core, not their inherent combat capability.”

  Glazmir advanced to stand in front of me, facing towards the oncoming threat, “well lad, I suppose it be time to see how we stack up to a B3.”

  I moved to the side Glazmir. Whatever was coming, I wanted it to focus on our Bulwark so I could be free to attack its flanks. I glanced behind me and saw Marty resuming his place behind Jax, near the back wall of the room.

  “It is almost here!” I yelled in warning as I saw the glow sharpen and increase in intensity. The glow coming from its mana was far more vibrant than the centipede was.

  The creature burst into the room with the ferocity of an angry bull. At only eight feet tall and maybe ten long, it certainly wasn’t the biggest enemy I had faced today. What it lacked in size however, it made up for in pure meanness.

  Covered in what looked like black quills that framed a canine face, the wolf like creature let out a growl of challenge and barreled right into the waiting Glazmir.

  “Come on ye overgrown porcupine,” Glaz howled at the thing, “this be as far as ye get!” He swung his mighty hammer and connected it solidly to the side of the snout of the monster, sending it sliding along the ground a few feet.

  Righting itself, it bounded to its feet and nipped at the Bulwark’s heels. Darting in and out in quick succession, each bite quicker than the last. I could see that the Bulwark was struggling to keep his shield between him and the creature.

  I charged in to help him out by distracting the wolf.

  Following the pattern that had worked well against the centipede, I darted in and struck with my blades. The wolf, displaying remarkable agility, shied away from where I attacked, and I was only able to score a glancing blow. In frustration, I stepped in a second time, this time following it up with a second strike with my offhand. The wolf again shied away from my attack.

  As I readied myself to repeat the pattern again, the quills of the wolf suddenly sprang erect and it lurched in my direction with surprising speed. Scrambling, it caught me as I was lunging for a third attack and I wasn’t able to dodge the oncoming quills. I screamed in pain as they pierced my chest and right leg.

  Thankfully, the sensation of Marty’s healing magic coursed through me. With the pain numbed, I was able to focus on my situation. Grabbing at one of the quills in my chest, I pushed against it, trying to dislodge myself and found that I was only able to push so far before my progress was blocked. They must be barbed like the porcupines back in the forest around Dor’s Crossing.

  Unable to reach the body of the wolf with the quills at their fullest extension, and being jostled from side to side as the creature continued to dodge then attack Glaz, I decided that I had only one course of action left if I wanted to get back into the fight. Gripping the quill in my chest again, I slashed at it with my mana blade, severing through it cleanly. One down, about six more to go.

  I had to be careful with cutting the quills, a careless move might see me gutting myself with my own blade.

  As I worked, Glazmir grunted in pain as bite after bite got through his guard and crunched into the armor of his arms and legs. By the time I had three more quills cut free, Glazmir was slowing considerably. Marty’s healing not able to keep pace with the damage being caused to him. Each step left a small puddle of blood in his wake.

  A crack rang through the air and several small white balls sent by Jax, crashed into the face of the wolf, making it howl in pain. Glazmir, taking the opportunity provided by the distraction, stepped into range and slammed his hammer down on the side of the wolf, sending it skidding a few feet and rolling onto its side.

  I shivered at the shock of the pain as the weight of the wolf pushed even more quills deeply into my chest and pinned one of my arms. Gasping as its body bore down on me, it took all of my focus to manage to stay conscious.

  As the wolf forced itself back to its feet, I saw it angle itself towards Marty and Jax near the back of the room for the first time during the fight. It lowered itself down on its front legs and arched its tail above itself. I thought it was about to charge them when it grunted and quills erupted from its spine, lancing through the air towards my shocked companions.

  A handful of quills skewered Marty and Jax, both crumpling under the force of the onslaught. Within moments, I saw Marty coughing up blood and waving feebly, probably trying to cast a healing spell before his hand fell limply to the ground and was still.

  I yelled in unbridled rage. No longer feeling the pain of my injuries, yanking and twisting my body, trying to tear myself free.

  Slashing at the quills holding me with my only free hand, I managed to cut through the ones trapping my right arm. Trying in vain to get the now free arm to respond to my will, it only jerked pathetically a couple of times before failing to respond at all.

  As I continued vigorously working to get myself free, the wolf lunged at Glazmir. The Bulwark braced himself behind his shield and pushed back against the wolf as it continued to snap at him from around the barrier. His knees wavering, the dwarf howled in defiance as the wolf, seeing victory, redoubled its efforts. Managing to bat aside his shield, the wolf got under his guard and latched onto Glaz’s neck.

  Spluttering in fury, Glaz’s eyes locked with mine as his gauntleted hands beat feebly at the face of the monster while it rode him to the ground. Unable to look away, I watched in numb shock as the light slowly faded from my comrade’s eyes, his face scrunched in a permanent death snarl of anger and futility.

  Shaking myself from what I just witnessed, I slashed again at the quills that pinned me to the side of the cursed beast, severing a few.

  The wolf, satisfied that his foe was dead, straightened up and padded towards the other two fallen members of my Hand. Stopping and smelling Marty, he dismissed him and continued onto Jax’s prone form. Not wanting to witness what was surely coming, I slashed again at the remaining bunch of quills piercing me. My arm, feeble with the loss of blood by this point did nothing more than flop in the air before returning to hang limply at my side.

  Stopping with his head above Jax, I could see his wide blue eyes staring up at the monster. His labored breathing audible over the sniffing of the wolf as he searched his prey, “I’m going to hang your skin on my wall when they eventually kill you,” he snarled vehemently and spat at the wolf’s face.

  As if the creature had some understanding of cruelty, it placed one paw on Jax’s chest and slowly shifted its weight on his body. Within moments, the cracks of breaking ribs and labored gasping breath could be heard.

  I looked away from the sight of my leader’s bulging frantic eyes, not wanting something like what I was witnessing to remain in my memories to haunt me for untold nights to come. After what felt like an eternity, the room fell silent again.

  “Kill me,” I whispered feebly at the monster, “just fucking kill me.”

  I looked over at the thing that was holding me captive and saw it craning its neck at an unnatural angle to meet my gaze. There is something about co
ming face to face with a cold-blooded killer that chills you to the bone. A long forgotten primal instinct must have taken over because I couldn’t look away from the thing. This is a true predator.

  Apparently making up its mind about me, it spread its legs on the floor and extended its body. I would have braced myself if I was capable of it, but it was all I could do to remain conscious. My one act of defiance at this thing. It will have to work a little more to kill me.

  It began to shake itself from head to toe, violently dislodging me from its quills. As I heard the squelching sound of tearing flesh, I briefly felt the sensation of flying before I crashed into the wall. Sliding down to rest against the floor, I observed dispassionately as the monster bent down and started eating Jax.

  As the desired blackness began to creep onto my vision, I smiled to myself when I saw that one of my legs was still stuck fast on the quills on the creature’s back. Take that you fucker. You can’t get rid of me that easily.

  Chapter Eleven

  Rest

  Journalist: “What do you do on the rare occasions you are able to leave the Dungeon?”

  Amani: “I look up.”

  Jolting awake, I sprang upwards, instinctively reaching for my mana and creating a blade that extended past my closed fist. Scanning the darkened room for any signs of the wolf that we had been fighting. After a few moments I began to relax, realizing that nothing around me was familiar. Replaying the recent events, I slowly remembered that our Hand had been killed by that damned thing.

  Turning in the room, I saw several platforms about waist height set into the rectangular walls. Most of the platforms were empty but I noticed humanoid shapes in a couple. Walking up to the closest, I could make out vague details of a squat body. Bulkier than the average human, I judged that it was probably a foot or so shorter than me.

  The body appeared to be covered in a gooey film that obscured most of the details. As I watched, the film seemed too thin as more definition of what was underneath came into focus. Within a handful of seconds, the film tore open and the eyes of the creature flew open and it sprang to life. Gasping and choking, it hacked up a mucus like substance, which it spat onto the floor.

  “By all the gold in me pa’s coffers,” the dwarf hung his head low, running his hands through his beard and making a disgusted face when it came back covered in slime, “what is this?” He looked up and seemed to notice me for the first time, “if this be your idea of a joke, just you wait lad.”

  “I don’t know what that stuff is either,” looking down I wasn’t sure how I managed to ignore that I was completely naked and covered in the same slime he was, “I think it might be how our bodies were remade.”

  Frowning, Glazmir slowly nodded, a faraway look in his eyes as he stared at nothing, “nasty business that was.”

  Not wanting to talk anymore about the subject, I walked over to the other two occupied platforms and figured they were probably Jax and Marty, judging by their sizes, “I think the other two will be joining us soon.”

  Nodding in acknowledgment, both of us separated and were attempting to wipe as much of the snot off of our bodies that we could. Before long, both were up and about.

  “Well fought all,” Jax said somberly, “that wolf was beyond our capabilities, but we did our duty.”

  “All we did was die,” Marty interjected harshly.

  “We fought. We died. Now we are back to fight again,” Jax said to Marty, “that is a Khanri’s purpose.”

  Scowling Marty retorted, “is that all we are then? Just fodder?”

  “We are the defenders of our way of life,” Jax’s voice took on an edge as he walked up to the diminutive gnome, “have you already forgotten what Thorn told you? We fight and die here so our families on the surface have a chance at peace. The Aku want to enslave everyone to their Dungeons. Although they don’t know it, we Khanri are the only hope any of them have.”

  Marty opened his mouth, his eyes blazing in defiance, but I saddled up to him and put my hand on his shoulder, “we signed up for this.”

  He seemed to deflate, “fair enough.” Brightening up slightly, “I suppose it wasn’t all bad. I did get to use magic after all.”

  I smiled, “by the way, that was some cool healing magic. Really effective too. I don’t know how it works, but even though I was impaled on half a dozen quills, I didn’t feel a thing.”

  Gesturing at us to follow him, Jax led us out into an adjoining room where cubicles were set into the walls with shower heads.

  While cleaning up, I jumped as a bellow of fear and rage echoed through the shower room. Within moments I was yanked out of my shower by a balling dwarf, “you tell him-,” he paused to sniffle loudly, “you tell Akashi to give it back!”

  Taken aback by the sudden onslaught, I had no clue what Glazmir was going on about, “give what back?”

  “It!” he gestured down at his waist that, thankfully, he had covered with a towel before assaulting me.

  “Glaz,” I was unsure what to say to the panicking dwarf, “I don’t know what you are talking about.”

  Glaz’s eyes filled with tears as he stared at me, choking back a sob he pulled at the waist of his towel and let it drop, “it’s gone!”

  Not wanting to do it, but feeling like I had to at this point, I quickly glanced down and found…nothing. Where little Glaz, or big Glaz if the dwarf was talking, should be, was nothing at all. Stunned by the revelation, I worked my mouth several times before I could speak, “that can’t be.”

  “Of all the horrible things to be done to a dwarf,” Glaz sobbed, “you tell Akashi to give it back!”

  Jax stuck his head out of his shower and calmly stated, “that wasn’t Akashi dwarf.”

  We both looked in his direction as he gestured at a peculiarly quiet shower stall.

  Frowning, we walked over and ripped open the curtain to reveal Marty biting his knuckles to keep quiet. As soon as he saw us, he roared with laughter. Pointing and gesturing between us with barely understandable words in between bouts of hysterical laughter, “that was great,” “you both thought-,” grinning maniacally he trumpeted, “I love being a Thaumaturge!”

  Distinctly unamused, I was beginning to understand what had happened. The damn gnome had created an illusion that would make Glaz’s member appear to be gone.

  I watched Glaz’s face go from despair, to shock and finally to anger. Without a word he grabbed Marty around the throat, hefted him off the air and punched him once squarely in his face.

  Blood gushed from his broken nose as he squealed in pain and was unceremoniously dropped. Crumpling onto the floor of the shower, Marty cupped his nose and asked accusingly, “wha twas dat fer?”

  Glazmir just glared at him and after a moment snorted vehemently and returned to his own shower.

  I reached out a hand to my friend and helped him up. Quietly saying, “now that was a great joke. Why don’t you use your other abilities to take care of that nose.” I slid his curtain shut and returned to my own shower, chuckling softly to myself.

  While cleaning up, I eagerly scanned my core to check my progress to the next rank. I was confused to find that the bar had only filled by a minuscule amount. If I was estimating, I would say maybe one or two percent. I don’t know what the lion’s rank was, but the centipede was an E3. More than an entire rank higher than me and my progress bar barely advanced at all. At this rate, it could take a hundred fights like we just went through to just get to rank F2 and from what I understood, the amount needed to rank up grows by an order of magnitude as you get stronger.

  As the enormity of the task set before us really set in, I struggled not to be dismayed at the long journey to get stronger ahead of me. I began to think that being able to measure your progress might not have been as great of an idea as I thought it would be. But as I stood in the shower with the hot water coursing over my head, I thought of all of the other Khanri that fought every day without being able to see the tangible progress of their efforts. They would
likely go for months or years without reaching the next rank and yet they still fought on. When I thought about it from that point of view, having any measure of progress might stave off the feeling of futility that must plague some of the Khanri.

  Jax started going over the fights and different strategies as we cleaned up. Since I was the only one that didn’t seem to have any inherent knowledge given to me, he suggested several basic tactics that I could employ in our future fights that would complement the other’s fighting styles. Mainly, he stressed that while I was melee, the biggest advantage I had was speed and that was my primary failing when fighting the wolf. I had allowed myself to be baited by the enemy into relinquishing my advantage by stubbornly pushing ahead and not coordinating with the Hand.

  I listened intently to everything he had to say and feeling refreshed, we exited the room and walked down another hallway to another room that had four beds set in opposite corners. A rack of clothes and chest set in a nook beside each bed.

  Jax gestured at the surroundings, “this is where we will be living.”

  “We don’t get apartments?” As the only living quarters I had seen, I thought we would have similar arrangements as Thorn.

  Jax laughed ruefully, “you think you deserve a suite like Thorn?”

  Abashed by the rebuke, “I guess not.”

  Marty walked over to the nearest bed, “does it matter who sleeps where?”

  “Choose whichever you want,” Jax walked over to the chest along the farthest wall and rummaged through it. Pulling out a set of sweats and shirt, he started pulling them on, “get dressed. We are going to head to the mess hall soon.”

  We each walked over to claim a set and started dressing. I was worried about clothes fitting us, but they seemed to magically shrink or expand to fit the user’s frame just like the armor.