by Matthew Peed
“A Miss Guin Loke, a merchant turned necromancer when her caravan was attacked by bandits many years ago. She was offered power, as usual, to be able to get revenge. Went so far down the path that she ended up sacrificing her own daughter to . . . whatever it is they worship,” I said, reading the information I had written. I was only seventy percent sure it was a rival Celestial. Some had reported a demon, while a few said it was a monster.
I suddenly heard a boom as the door to the room was thrown open and Julie threw herself on me after crossing the distance in a blink of an eye. If I hadn’t known any better, I would have thought she was a monkey.
“MASTER! Why do you leave here me all by myself!” she cried in my ear, actually crying.
“Wow! Who was it that said she wanted to watch the prisoners?” I shot back.
“Well how was I supposed to know that Master would lock them in eggs and throw away the keys?! I thought I would get some toys to play with. Just the thought of taunting them through the bars of their cells was making me giddy! I have been staring at the wall for two days straight! Wrakras ran away, I’m so bored!”
I sighed deeply, then very slowly said, “Julie . . . off.” Instead of jumping off, her grip tightened even as yellow sparks started to fly from her collar. I sighed even deeper this time. “Julie, I’ll let you hold on to my arm, but you need to get off,” I said, giving up.
She slid down my body and onto my arm like a slime. It must have been very weird to witness. Once there she calmed down and held on as if to let go meant death. I stared at her curiously for a moment, as I found something odd. When Izora had started to worship me, I’d gained what I was starting to call “faith mana,” but I had never gotten that from Julie, even with her reverence.
Before I could think on it further, Lines spoke up. “Can I interrogate one of them?”
“Sure, but they are mine, so no killing them,” I said with some force. These necromancers were like batteries, giving a decent amount of mana to the dungeon.
“I would never,” Lines said evenly but still made it sound like he was insulted.
Chapter 15
Izora
“Turn that sword!”
“No! That one’s a trap!”
“For Regan’s sake, let me do it!”
My party and I were currently on the thirteenth floor of Regan’s dungeon. I was also currently feeling like knocking all my guards on the head with a club. From the previous two floors we already knew that some swords had traps under them. This floor’s traps were getting worse, many of them instantly fatal. One adventurer near us on the floor twisted a sword, then a moment later all that remained was a three-meter diameter crater with pieces of the man raining down on the party nearby.
I was diving the dungeon, as I wanted my people to be worthy to see the sight Regan had let me see. I considered just asking him, but something inside was telling me this was the correct path to take after the last time we dived. What better way to give tribute to my god than to dive into the dungeon challenges as he laid them out?
“Princess, please, you need to take a break,” Hatsu said next to me.
“Not until we reach the next floor,” I said with some anger.
“Princess, the men will die if this continues. Take a break . . . for them,” she said quietly.
I looked at the others in the party, and indeed it looked like they were about to collapse. “Very well. I would like to take a break. Everyone, rest for an hour, then we will continue on,” I said, doing my best to sound high-handed. I knew these men and women weren’t guilty of the crimes of our brothers and sisters, but I wanted to keep them at arm’s length. At least until I got my own head on straight.
Only a moment later did the entire party fall to their backsides. I looked them over, feeling some regret over my actions. Yes, I wanted them to prove themselves, but only a tyrant forced their people like this. I took a deep breath and promised to do better. Arm’s length does not mean pushed to exhaustion.
“Describe it again, Your Highness. What you saw,” Tsuzuki asked from next to me. I was kind of surprised that he didn’t look worse for wear like the rest of the party. He was nearly twice the age of everyone here, after all.
“I was on a metal ship that had to be the size of some cities. I was able to tell that just from looking, but the amazing part was that it wasn’t in the sky, but past it. I could see all of Murgin. The north, Lecazar, Thonaca, even this valley. The stars were right next to me, Teacher! If not a god, then who could do such magic?”
“Regan is a dungeon core,” Tsuzuki said matter-of-factly.
I glared at him. I knew dungeons could create magical places. That did not explain what I’d seen. “We’ve researched dungeons! None have ever managed to do this, even while the Flame of Knowledge was on Murgin before.”
“This is true . . . Very well, I feel that it is necessary to see this for myself.”
“You won’t regret it, Teacher,” I said with a smile.
While we rested, we heard a howl in the distance. It was pretty far off from the sound of it, and there were other parties on the floor at the moment. There had been only a few packs on each floor so far, but dealing with them while trying to unlock the door and avoiding increasingly deadly traps was difficult to say the least.
We heard running in the distance, and everyone jumped up to brace themselves for whatever was coming. The floor mimicked a winter’s night in that the light level depended on the moon. Right then, it was a crescent, so sight wasn’t too far from our group.
“I had no choice! The damn switch was literally right next to the den!” I heard from the direction of the running.
“Alexander! For the last time! Stop rushing in like a bloody moron. I know angels like their crusades, but now’s not a good place for that shit!” a female voice shouted. I vaguely recognized it.
A single loud howl sounded from directly behind the people running toward us. It quickly grew until there were at least a dozen more intermixed with it. I could also tell the party was running almost directly at us. Rather than have the wolves flank us, I decided to have them run straight down our swords.
“Brace!” I shouted to everyone. Then I continued louder, hoping the party would hear me, “This way! Help is this way!”
The sound of running angled more directly toward us. The guards with shields moved to the front, while the mages and air rifle users began to channel mana into their spells. Finally, the people got close enough for us to see them. It was the Chaos Party that we’d fought the tenth-floor boss with.
Soon we were able to see the pack of wolves right behind them. They looked like a smaller version of Louella’s, but they were still equally deadly, if not more so. They had fur like normal wolves, but when struck by our weapons, we quickly found out that the fur was some type of metal fibers. Coming in at close to three meters long and nearly a gnome high, they were not to be trifled with.
There were at least nine of them, but I’m sure there were some in the background, as they liked to make sneak attacks. So far, most groups would lay a series of traps to slowly pick off the pack as they chased them. This was the first time I had encountered someone brave enough, or stupid enough, to mess with an entire pack at once straight on like this. Though, I guess they were fleeing.
I released the lock on my cannons and allowed them to start floating around me. I targeted the first in the rushing pack as well as one in the middle. I would have targeted closely packed wolves, but they were all spread out as if to avoid collateral damage. My guards each called off which they were targeting so that there wouldn’t be any overlap.
Finally, the Chaos Party crossed the defense line. Alexander stopped in his tracks and took up the gap made for them with his own shield raised. At least they could react quickly.
“Fire!” I shouted.
The air rifles struck first with two of their targets losing limbs and the other removing a chunk from one of the wolves’ flanks. My mana cannons fired next,
the ancient magic still having precise targeting that managed to strike both the wolves I was aiming for in the head, turning them into melted slag. Lastly, the mages’ attacks slammed into the ranks of the charging wolf pack.
Three balls of molten earth slammed into their targets, throwing them to the ground. The attacks clung to the wolves as they melted through their metallic skin. Even with part of their flanks or limbs missing, the damaged wolves quickly got back on their feet, then continued charging. That was the thing that made this dungeon so hard—the monsters couldn’t feel pain or were able to operate without being bothered by it.
The only ones that stayed down were the ones I struck with the mana beam. Only a few seconds later, the first line of the wolves struck the shield wall. All the shield bearers were terra cultivators, thus were able to withstand the tremendous force of the impacts. Once the wolves hit the shields and came to a stop, they turned into crazed beasts that tried to tear their way through the shields with teeth and claws that were sharper than most swords.
I channeled my mana into the cannons while my warhammer lifted into the air, then was sent sailing straight for the nearest wolf’s head. I saw Morita stab her spear through the shield wall with lightning crackling along it. The warhammer collided with the wolf, but only left a bend in its head, and didn’t seem to slow it down at all. It turned its eyes . . . eye, as one was busted, and glared at me with hatred. Hatsu aimed her air rifle at it, then fired a round into its remaining eye.
A yell of pain pulled my gaze to the left where one of the guards was being pulled out of the defense line by a wolf that had its jaws locked around his leg. Before I could issue an order to help him, Cohnal leaped out of the line and onto the wolf’s back. Flames leaped from his swords as he drove them into the wolf’s neck. It looked like he was about to leap back into the line when something in the wolf exploded. He was thrown backward toward the rest of the pack.
A wolf near him went for his neck, but a rain of icicles blocked its approach. I targeted the wolf with one of my mana cannons and used it at only half charge. The beam still managed to slice clean through the shoulder of the wolf. Cohnal was already rushing back to the defense line when the icicles started to fall.
“This be easier than poking a troll’s cave,” the dwarf Folwin said. As soon as he did, I wanted to smack him over the head. Hadn’t anyone learned not to test this dungeon . . . ?
Sure enough, a moment later the remaining four wolves ran back, then stopped roughly twenty meters away. I didn’t want to test whatever was about to come our way.
“Charge! Don’t let them do anything!” I ordered.
The defense line started to rush toward the four wolves, but we’d only made it about six meters when the altercation happened. A surge of ice mana rushed toward the wolves and coated them. What looked like an armor made of ice with jagged spikes formed over each of them. Their claws also extended into what was closer to sword blades, then claws.
En masse, they turned toward us. We had all stopped running during the show, the wind having forced us to stop charging. They didn’t howl; they roared. Which was strong enough to cause the air to rush toward us. Everyone staggered from the sound and covered their ears in an attempt to reduce the sound just a bit. The roar finally cut off, leaving some of our ears bleeding.
“Folwin, if we survive this, I’m going to kill you,” Celena said as she rubbed her ears.
“Brace yourselves! Fire mages begin high-level spells. I don’t know how much effect they’ll have, but anything is better than nothing,” I ordered as I worked to get my mana cannons fully charged. One was almost there but the other was basically empty from a minute prior. “Tsuzuki, link into the device and give me some mana. Water magic’s not going to be much help against those.”
“Yes, Your Highness,” Tsuzuki said. He rushed next to me and rested a hand on my shoulder. A moment later mana started to flow from him into the devices.
The four wolves crouched, then charged us, crossing the distance in a blink of an eye. The shield bearers were woefully unprepared for such power as the spikes of ice on the wolves’ heads tore through the shields and, in one case, the man’s arm. The defense line crumbled with everyone taking an every-man-for-himself posture. Sasori braced herself as the wolf that I injured earlier turned toward me with menace on its face. It even felt like the spikes of ice on this wolf looked a bit more twisted than the others.
In an explosion of snow and dirt, it charged right at us. Sasori angled her great sword to receive the blow, but I wasn’t sure how much good it would do. Right before the wolf collided with her, a sleek wall of stone emerged from the ground. The wolf’s spike of ice on its head sliced right through the wall, but instead of crumbling, it passed through without difficulty. That changed when the wolf’s head reached the wall. It collided with a bang, unable to pass through like the horn. The speed of its charge forced the rest of the body to keep moving, which on a normal monster would have broken its neck.
I jumped around the wall before it could break free and aimed the barrel of the mana cannon point-blank against its head. It glared at me with so much killing intent I almost choked before sending the mental command to the cannon, but I gritted my teeth and managed to send it. With a deep blue, the mana beam sliced through the wolf’s head, and it slumped down, losing all its strength.
Quickly turning toward the rest of the battle, I took in the events, trying to figure who to help first. In the few seconds it took us to take out the wolf, three people had died. One of the wolves had a guard’s arm in its mouth and appeared to be treating it like a chew toy. I pointed the second cannon at it aiming for the head, it was only a few meters away, even though it felt like several hundred. The beam sliced through the air and collided with the wolf. It managed to adjust its body before the ice was cut through, and the rest of the beam struck the ground behind it.
Right as it was about to charge me, two blades wreathed in flames exited through its neck. They acted like a pair of scissors, and the head went flying. Cohnal stepped on the severed head in a victorious stance, at least until a shard of ice struck him in the chest and sent him flying.
I turned in the direction it had come from. A wolf stood, a bloody, most likely dead, Folwin under him. The rest of the party was able to regroup, and we all faced the last wolf, the others having been killed by the mages’ charged Fire spells. Luckily, one of them managed to keep the spell going even with the line being broken. I would have to congratulate him later.
The wolf looked us over, then at its dead brethren before it howled almost in sadness. The ice that formed its armor exploded into shards and steam after it sent us a growl. I quickly channeled air mana to clear the area in case it was a trap, but when the steam was gone the wolf was gone as well. I had the party stay braced for several minutes before I allowed them to relax for a moment.
“I’ve never seen a dungeon monster mourn the loss of its comrades,” Alexander said as he approached us.
“This is not your typical dungeon,” I replied with a bit of anger. “What were you thinking?! I lost three people thanks to you!” I shouted, my anger rising.
“My apologies, Lady Izora. I take full blame for this,” Alexander said with a sad look.
“Blame . . . How does you taking blame bring them back?!” I got right in his face. “If this weren’t a dungeon, I would have you and your entire family hunted down! Never expect help from us again!” I growled.
“As you say,” Alexander said in the quietest voice I had ever heard.
“Your Highness! Over here!” I heard Tsuzuki shout.
I glared one last time at Alexander before I ran over. One of the men that I had thought was dead was still breathing shallowly. His eyes were open, and the fear of death was in them as he looked at me.
“Yo . . . ur . . . . High . . . ness,” he attempted to say, before I stopped him.
“Enough, I got this!” I said.
His legs were ruined, and his chest had several punc
ture wounds where the wolf had bitten him. Saving his life was more important than him being able to walk, so I ignored his legs and focused on his chest. I placed my hand over one of the wounds and channeled light mana. I knew the lungs were under this wound, so I focused on putting them back together as I’d been taught by my medical teacher.
Mana surged out of me and rushed into the man’s body. I felt him shudder under my hand but kept going. I heard muffled groans, which made me aware that someone had put a bind in his mouth to help with the pain. I concentrated on putting the organ back together, “stitching” it back into one piece. Just before I managed to fix his lungs . . . I ran out of mana.
“No!” I shouted in horror. Tears ran down my checks at the thought that I wouldn’t be able to save him. I looked deep inside myself for anything, anything at all that might let me save him, for any ounce of mana I might have missed. I vaguely felt a hand on my shoulder, then the strangest thing happened. While I sensed the hand on my shoulder, I noticed another link that was like a thin cord.
Even in my current state, I knew not to trust things I had never seen before. I carefully, but quickly followed the link until reaching something that took me completely by surprise. In front of my mental view, there was what looked like a sphere made from gears. Actually that’s not correct. As the sphere rotated in front of me, there were sections that had sleeker designs, and structures with lines that turned at perfect angles.
The main thing that caught my attention was the massive amount of mana that radiated in the space. It felt like an ocean that would swallow me up if I made the wrong move. I carefully reached forward with my mind and touched the mana, desperate to save the man. It responded by surging at me, back along the link and slamming my mental image back into my body with enough mana to power my cannon at least ten times. I felt like I was about to burst at the seams with how much was coursing through me.
