Corsair's Prize: A LitRPG Dungeon Core Adventure (Dungeon of Evolution Book 2)

by DB King

The whole line of the dockland wharves was on fire now, and the thick smoke choked the air and settled in a haze above the battle. All along the mile of the docks, fighting was breaking out. The hybrids had managed to break through the defenses at various points simultaneously, and now spread like a creeping tide among the defenders.

  Again, Marcus felt that sense that some new power lay just below his awareness, more than the increased power of his spells. He felt like the docks themselves were calling to him, the stones and earth that made the city reaching up to him. At that moment, he heard a familiar voice below him and looked down.

  Kairn fought alongside Dirk and Anja, surrounded by a seething mass of Kraken City defenders. The hybrids had broken past the initial defense of the wharf where they had landed, pushing up toward the lines of buildings that fronted onto the docklands.

  Marcus dropped to the ground, his mace in his hand, and waded into the fight. He cast strength and speed buffs on himself and the defenders around him. Together they pushed back against the advancing wave of hybrids. Bodies littered the flagstones, and though many of the hybrids had been burned or cut down, even more were pouring onto the docks from the press of ships that was forced up against the wharves.

  The hybrids fought without weapons, tearing at the defenders with their hands and teeth. They could be cut down and disabled, Marcus saw, but they did not actually die unless burned. The smashed bodies would stagger up again, reeling like drunkards, to throw themselves against the wall of the defenders. They were perhaps ineffective, but they outnumbered the defenders three to one at least, and still more were pouring forth onto the docks.

  His spells were incredibly effective. As he rose, he let the status updates show themselves to him. The level ups were as impressive as the effects.

  Spell: Hero’s Might Level 3

  Level increase: 80%

  Progress to next level: 51%

  Spell: Fleetfoot Level 4

  Level increase: 80%

  Progress to next level: 22%

  Marcus looked around. Even with powerful magical buffs, the defenders were being pushed back, away from the docks. More and more of the enemy were coming from the ships.

  “This cannot go on for long!” Kairn bellowed to Marcus. “Something must be done to turn this tide!”

  “Can you not place a dungeon, Marcus?” Anja asked.

  “They can only be placed underground!” Marcus replied, but a voice spoke in his ear.

  It was Ella. “Try, Marcus,” she said. “Try to cast a dungeon. You are the master, are you not? You have changed, Marcus, I don’t know what you might be capable of now. You must try!”

  Doubtfully, Marcus nodded. He took off again, flying up into the air above the heads of the seething mass of hybrids. He raised his mace, and pointed it at the ground, right in the midst of a press of attackers.

  “Crucible: Place Bladehand chamber!” he said. A white blast, like lightning, arced down from his mace. It connected with the ground and blasted the hybrids aside, clearing a space. The cobbled surface of the ground exploded upward with incredible force, sending chunks of masonry and stone shrapnel smashing into the pressed attackers all around.

  There was a churning sound, as if something was pressing up from the ground below. The ground shook, growled. Dirt and mud flew up into the air. Enemies were thrown in all directions. When the dust cleared, a circular pit, ten feet across and about six feet deep, remained. And at the bottom of the pit, a gaping entrance with bright light shining out from it.

  “You did it!” Ella shouted excitedly.

  “And the dungeon is still placed underground, if only just!” Marcus laughed. It was true. The pit that had opened up created an underground space for the dungeon entrance. So it could be done!

  With exultation running through him, Marcus flew along the docks, blasting dungeon entrances into the ground. He left the Bladehand dungeon where it was, and added an entrance to the Harpy dungeon and one to the Pirate’s Cove dungeon at core choke points along the docks.

  For now, he kept the Arena dungeon in reserve, and also did not place the entrance to the Cursed Pestilence dungeon. His instinct told him that he might need the Arena dungeon later, and the Cursed Pestilence was something he would not use unless he was completely desperate.

  Every time he placed a dungeon entrance, it blasted a pit in the ground that sent the enemy flying. The entrances to the dungeons were in the bottom of the pits, and the hybrids pressed forward, tumbling into the pits. As they stumbled down the rough edges of the craters the dungeon entrances yawned open to meet them, and they charged blindly inside.

  These dungeon entrances were not like the usual doors and iron gates that normally appeared when Marcus placed a dungeon. Instead, they were wide cracks in the ground that opened like yawning mouths to admit the raging hybrids. As the third dungeon was placed, Marcus felt the power of the dungeon meld, pressing at him, and he accepted the spell.

  He flew higher, away from the battle. Ella was at his side, and he found himself slipping into a peaceful, removed state that reminded him of the augmentation view. Here, he became aware of everything that was happening within his dungeons. He found that he could look at them as if looking at a miniature on his dungeon management table.

  “I see it too,” Ella said quietly. “Look there. What is that option there?”

  She was pointing to a thin line that ran between each dungeon chamber. Marcus could see the hybrids crashing into the dungeon chambers and engaging with the enemies there, each in their separate chambers. Now, he reached forth toward the faintly shimmering connecting lines and, guided by instinct, enacted the magic that they suggested to him.

  “Crucible: connect,” he murmured, and it happened. Tunnels opened between the dungeon chambers, and the chambers themselves rearranged themselves around the network of passages and corridors. Now, all three dungeons were connected. Aboveground, the three pit entrances remained the same, but in the strange, alternate reality in which the dungeons themselves existed, there was now a continuous exchange of paths and energy between the dungeons. The separate chambers had become one fully-connected system.

  More and more of the hybrids were charging into the dungeons, drawn by the same powerful magic that had caused the vampires to awaken. Marcus could feel that powerful influence thrumming through him, and he reached out and took control of it. It was new, and he channeled it carefully at first, then more boldly. He let it flow out of the pits that held the dungeon entrances, flowing like water around the hybrids and drawing them to the dungeons.

  He blinked, separating his awareness of his dungeons from his awareness of the battle below. He looked down.

  “I think it’s working,” he said.

  Ella nodded. “I think you’re right,” she said. “The force of the hybrids’ attack seems to be lessening.”

  Everywhere they looked, they saw hybrids that had been focused on forcing their way up through the defenders toward the city, turning away, wavering, drawn to the dungeon entrances.

  “I wonder…” Marcus said. He dived down toward the battle again. Surely if the dungeons were all one connected system now, he could create new entrances? The success at placing the dungeons from an overground position had buoyed up his confidence, and he was prepared to try to innovate now and see what happened.

  He dived toward a press of hybrids who were fighting against a knot of Thun cavalry and Kraken City duelists. The Thun horses were becoming agitated by the clamor and by having no room to move. The Thun warriors were using their spears to cut down the attacking hybrids, but the blank-eyed humanoids that were cut down just crawled up to grab at the horses’ legs or try to drag the riders from the saddle.

  “Look out below!” Marcus roared, and he landed in the midst of the fight, his mace swinging, crushing the heads of the hybrids nearby. As the now pulp-headed creatures struggled back up, Marcus blasted Elemental Water across the ground, using the force to knock the fallen enemies away.

  The
horses behind him reared up and whinnied in fear, but Marcus ignored that. He pointed his mace forward and blasted a new entrance to the dungeon system into being. Using his newfound power to attract the hybrids to the dungeon, he drew the nearest group away from the attack and laughed in satisfaction as they broke off their attack and shambled to the entrance.

  He leaped into the air and flew away again, hearing the cheers of his allies below him ringing in his ears. He was not done yet. Another two entrances were blasted into the ground before he felt the dungeon system start to grind under the pressure of having too many entrances.

  I guess that’s all the system can handle for the moment, he thought, and glanced at Ella.

  She looked a bit shaken.

  “You all right?” he asked briskly as they hovered above the seething battlefield.

  “I… I think so,” she said, nodding but looking pale. “I can just feel the weight of the dungeon system. There’s so much power being expended, I can feel it creaking, like an overloaded ship sailing too low in the water.”

  “As if an unexpected wave could capsize it?” Marcus said. “I feel that too. But don’t forget that we were prepared to give up ourselves and our dungeons to stop this battle before it began. If the price of winning is that the dungeon system breaks under the strain, that’s a price I’m willing to pay. Yes, even if it means my life. I won’t see Kraken City fall, not for anything.”

  Ella looked at him in admiration. “Every day,” she said with a small smile, “I am reminded again that I found a good ally to grant my dungeon power to.”

  Marcus smiled back at that. All around them, the battle raged furiously. Through his dungeon awareness, he could see the monsters fighting the hybrids throughout every chamber of his dungeon system. But despite all that, no matter what else happened, he found that he agreed with her. Whatever the outcome of this battle, Marcus was glad that he had been the dungeon master, the ally of Ella, the dungeon faerie.

  “Come on,” Marcus said. “Let’s finish this battle if we can.”

  He turned back toward the docks—as he did, it happened.

  The sea exploded upward. Giant claws smashed up through the burning wreckage of the docks. Something was crawling up the side of the wharf, something huge and horrible to look upon.

  Marcus saw the flash of the red jacket and heard the boom of a cold voice raised in imperious command.

  The Corsair himself had joined the battle.

  Chapter 28

  The Corsair, vampire master of the hybrid army, came into the battle riding a monstrous creature as big as a ship. It was so horrible to look at that Marcus had to force himself not to look away.

  The creature was somewhere between a spider and a scorpion. It had six legs rather than eight, and it had a scorpion’s flat, insectoid face under an armored skull-plate of chitinous armor. Unlike a scorpion, however, it had eight red eyes arranged on the front of its hideous face that shone out with an evil intelligence as it glared around the battlefield.

  Behind its head and short neck, a huge, heaving body reared up. A massive scorpion’s stinger swung up menacingly behind it. In front, two pincers gleamed razor sharp as they swung and snapped. Long, vicious spikes extended up from its body at all points, some easily six feet in length. Venom dripped from its ravening mouth as it heaved its nightmare body into view.

  Water sloshed from the creature’s body as it climbed insect-like up the side of the wharf. It was so big that the Corsair, standing on top of the monster’s back, seemed dwarfed. Marcus registered that the Corsair had changed his hook for a sword that seemed to fit snugly over the stump where his right hand would have been.

  In his left hand, a bright light glowed, and as he raised it Marcus knew that this was the power the Corsair held—the power that allowed him to control the hybrids.

  Riding the monster, the Corsair charged headlong into the press of hybrids and defenders on the docks. The huge scorpion swung its claws left and right, and slammed its mighty sting about itself. Every time the sting hit, an explosion of sickly green fire expanded out from the impact. The creature slew everything in its path, friend and foe alike, and the Corsair seemed not to care. He roared encouragement, driving the creature on. The monstrosity carved a bloody path through the crowd, leaving a trail of twitching bodies in its wake.

  “I have to stop him!” Marcus yelled. “I have to take him on head to head! It’s our only hope!”

  “But how?” Ella replied, sounding panicked.

  “There’s only one way!” Marcus said. He leaped forward, raised his mace, and blasted an entrance to the Arena dungeon right in the path of the Corsair.

  The explosion of cobblestones and dirt barely slowed the gigantic scorpion creature, but the huge pit that opened in front of it did. As the entrance opened, Marcus felt the whole dungeon system creak, as if it were on the verge of collapse. What will happen if it can’t bear the strain? Marcus wondered, but there was no time to debate the point. The Corsair’s hideous mount reared up away from the pit, but from behind it there came a new press of hybrids pouring from the ships.

  Marcus realized what had happened. When the scorpion monster had surged up out of the water, it had doused the flames on many of the burning ships in the dock. This had allowed many more hybrids to cross the press of the ships, and now they came on in a roaring hoard. The Corsair held up the crackling hybrid control power that he held in his left hand and called a command. Marcus saw the magic swirl. The Corsair was obviously commanding his soldiers to stop, but they had nowhere to go. The front ranks tried to pull up, but the momentum from the crowd behind drove them forward.

  Marcus, in a flash of sudden inspiration, turned the dungeons’ power of attraction on the hybrids. His power struggled with the Corsair’s power, but it was just influential enough to cause the crowd to surge forward once more. The scorpion turned, trying to move away from the open pit, but the crowd pushed forward again. Panicked, the scorpion reared up, and at that moment the Corsair was flung off the monster’s back and crashed to the edge of the pit.

  There was no time to think, no time to make a considered decision and weigh up the possibilities. Marcus flung himself at the Corsair, tackling him around the waist as he teetered on the edge of the pit. The Corsair yelled in anger and tried to cut Marcus with his sword hand, but could not land a blow.

  Together, they tumbled down the edge of the pit and slipped into the yawning opening that led down into the Arena.

  Marcus heard the howling of the battle from above and, as he fell, the mouth of the pit snapped closed behind him.

  They fell together, through darkness.

  In the back of Marcus’s mind, he was aware of boiling chaos in the dungeon system. His dungeon monsters were fighting the Corsair’s hybrids in every chamber and corridor of the dungeon system, and more hybrids were pouring in through the entrances every moment.

  He was also dimly aware of the fighting aboveground. The scorpion rampaged through the crowd, and nobody could withstand it. The defenders retreated or fled in front of it, and the hybrids poured in to fill the gaps. From the city above, someone had set up a battery of catapults. They were flinging rocks down into the packed crowd from high above, but it made little difference to the battle below.

  Little by little, the hybrids were making their way up into Kraken City.

  Where is the Arena? Marcus thought wildly as they fell. All around them was darkness. There was no sign of anything, no walls, no ceiling, not even any ground below rushing up to meet them. The Corsair twisted and punched Marcus with his left hand, a solid blow to the gut that drove the wind out of him.

  Marcus let go and pushed away from the Corsair, kicking him in the chest. He was now a few feet away from the huge vampire instead of grappling with him. Marcus still held his mace, and he swung it to catch a descending blow from the Corsair’s sword. Marcus activated his power of flight. He blasted forward and grabbed the Corsair around the waist, tackling him and pushing him backward.r />
  How do I kill him? He thought wildly. He’s a vampire—I can’t kill him in any of the regular ways. I need to burn him, or expose him to direct sunlight, but I don’t know how to do that in the dungeons. The dungeons have always set their own weather depending on my mood, and right now I’m not feeling particularly sunny!

  Even as the thought ran through his mind, the Arena crackled into being around him. It was incredible—one moment they were hurtling through the air, locked in combat, and the next they were soaring above the arena. As he had guessed, the sky was black, but he had not expected the rain. It drove down in torrential waves, running down the walkways between the seating overlooking the central fighting pit and fountaining off the elaborately decorated stonework of the surrounding walls.

  The roar of the phantom crowd rose up to meet them, and Marcus pushed away from the Corsair again. The vampire fell straight downward and landed with a crash in the middle of the arena. Marcus dived down after him and delivered a blow with his mace that was meant to smash his enemy’s head, but caught his shoulder instead.

  The Corsair leaped to his feet, seeming unaffected by the blow or the fall. With terrifying speed, he grabbed Marcus and flung him across the arena. It was all Marcus could do to focus and use his power of flight to catch himself in mid-air and stop before he smashed into the wall. The impact would have killed him. The Corsair was monstrously strong.

  Marcus threw out a hand to summon a monster, but it didn’t work.

  Come on! he thought desperately. Why won’t it work?

  It was like trying to catch smoke—the spell was in front of him, but he couldn’t get a grip on it.

  The Corsair grinned, his monstrous fangs gleaming. “It seems your dungeons have abandoned you, dungeon master!”

  The crowd roared in appreciation as the Corsair charged Marcus again, swinging his sword left and right.

  “Hero’s Might!” Marcus cast the spell on himself and “Fleetfoot!” he cried, feeling the magic tear through him like a tide.