The Way of the Clan 9

by Dem Mikhaylov

  Judging by his quiet swearing, Doc also inspected his supplies, and the results of his search did not particularly please him. We were enveloped in a triple aura, and the regeneration of mana and life skipped up. Our protection against physical injuries increased.

  “Ros, I have a magic needle with help of the holy elder Lurily. I can break it out … it gives half an hour of tripled regeneration and stamina.”

  “Save it,” I shook my head, taking another step forward. It was hard to walk in the water, but Kolyvan’s trunk, which began to push me forward, was at my back. And the wave from the walking fossil pushed me forwards as well.

  “Crabs of the seventieth level… o-o-ohh … electric eels of the ninetieth …” The elf’s voice sounded like a gloomy promise, and I glanced sideways at his body submerged in water. If eels strike with natural electricity, none of us would survive.

  “Anything to protect from lightning and electricity?” I asked the rhetorical question. The answer was silence. Bad — “How far are they and how many of them?”

  “Two cra-a-abs under the water. Behind them, the eel. On-n-ne.

  Quickly changing the spells, I raised my hand — “sticky vine” stuck into the ceiling of the corridor. With the help of a spell, I lifted myself out of the water. But with the mammoth and its riders this trick would not work. They would be hit with electricity. And I, hanging on a sticky vine coming out of my hand, would lose half my rate of firepower.

  “Doc, Kolyvan’s health is in your hands. Take care of the beast.”

  “I will do everything I can, Ros.”

  “Done. Prepare for battle. Stop … a message broke through...”

  We had moved to a certain place in the dungeon. And this was enough to return the possibility of communication with the outside world. But not the possibility of teleportation. We were still trapped.

  “Ros! Where the hell are you? Was it you on the top of that cliff? The observer lost sight of you. He saw you in the telescope as he followed the golden dragon. Then the dragon moved and voila — you were not there. What magic is this, disciple?”

  “We are under the cliff. Screwed,” I frantically began to scribble the answer. “We are in a lost dungeon. C.A.P.S. status — the dungeon master is alive. They promise an increase to mana here, if we can find it. Two incantations of the Ancients and one knowledge spell, if you believe the info. We are in the passage. Orbit, Doc, Kolyvan and myself. Teleportation blocked. “

  “Shit! Shit! How can we get to you? I could not answer before — we were fighting in the jungle. Where is the door?”

  “Across the top of the cliff. There is a passage.”

  “Impossible! Florian was trapped there. We can barely see through the birds! He’s yelling something, all red with fury, but you cannot hear shit. A complete blockade. And who knows when it will end. The birds fly faster. “

  “Wait,” I typed in reply, since the trunk of Kolyvan began to push me especially hard. I had to react and look angrily at the impudent trunk. He looked away, obeying the will of the master. There was an inscription on the wall. On quite understandable to me in terms of language — done with ordinary paint, in somewhat uneven and large handwriting.

  The subterranean flood of tide will bring peace to the birds!

  Evaluating what was written, I let out a long sigh, and returned to the correspondence, glancing at the dark corridor in front of us, from where a distinct tapping and clicking could be heard.

  “We have an inscription here: the subterranean flood of the tide will bring peace to the birds.” And until then, Florian will sit there. Tell him this.”

  “Damn … We will pass on the info. Look for the second entrance! It should be there! Ros, find the second pass! We must get to the dungeon! And quick!”

  “I am here — Orbit, Doc and mammoth! And ahead of us in the corridor are electric eels and crabs. And these are only the initial lines of the promised restaurant menu, Malice. Prospects are gloomy. Do not write to me — correspond with Doc. I shouldn’t be distracted. As soon as I can, I will write to you a couple more of the secrets I have learned — and I want to get a third of the profits from them, if any.”

  “Accepted! Tell me the secrets. Ros, the Sleepless very much rely on you, friend!”

  “I am here only for myself and my friends,” I answered after a moment’s thought. “If I am being honest. And you try to get here only for the sake of adding to your mana. And I called you as a friend and mentor, and not as one of your clan. I do not care about the Sleepless now, Malice. Everyone, wait for the heartbreaking news. And wish us luck. “

  I hoped sincerely that Malice and the rest of them would understand. I knew about their global goals and needs, but I was not going to tear my own veins for the sake of those who were already far from poor and certainly not weak. It is one thing to help in really critical situations, and It is completely another when It is not about daily bread, but about an extra layer of butter and sausage.

  With a howl, the ghosts entered into the battle— property of the dancing elf, who was eagerly glancing around the walls of the dungeon and muttering something to himself. This was much more interesting than watching the ships creep forward on the watery surface. I tried at least for a minute to make my life more interest-ting. I was happy with this, knowing full well that, in the surrounding underground darkness, the elf was my main trump card. I really did not want to die and be thrown out of Tidal Death.

  Attacked by two ghost, a giant crab ran into the lighted area, and I vividly recalled its intelligent cousins the crabbers — just as powerful, armored and spiteful. But something was different — the claws. There were two of them, and each the size of an industrial secateurs. The pincers clicked over the water, threatening to cut us in half. Worse — behind the crab, the giant electric eel was spinning in the water, engaged in a battle with the third ghost.

  Planting “bramble” would be stupid — I used “string”, trying to hit the stems of their eyes. I missed. The creature who I tried to hit sharply turned in place, lifted his claws above him and tried to cut off my wet heels. Jumping up, I used vine to swing to the opposite side of the corridor. Like Tarzan — except I planted my face into the stone, and lost several precious life points. Behind my back, Doc and the elf were laughing, and the mammoth shook his huge head. And then a faint flash of a greenish-blue light hit me, instantly adding back my lost life.

  I shot another “string” at the crab, and he turned around and moved towards me. His eyes looked with such dispassion and determination that, for the first time in a long time, I felt that primitive fear of a novice player who faced his first serious opponent in his gaming life. I released a fireball which forced the crab to plunge headlong into the hissing water. Avoiding the fire, the ghosts dove after the crab and grabbed his eyes. He jumped out like a submarine, picked up his claws … and … an incredibly large club of wood, held by the trunk of Kolyvan, struck his shell with a crunch. I recognized the club as the same one used by the forest giants living in the dense forest of the Dark Edge. In addition to the wood there were spikes of black shiny stone. The crab floated away, deterred. I took advantage of the chance and continued to shoot fire and “string”, pausing when the club struck the crab’s head. The tactics worked. The monster died, causing us no harm — although he did manage to make a huge hole in my trouser leg.

  “Walk on” I shouted, having gone down into the water and picked up one of the bulging eyes, one claw, a piece of dark orange meat, as well as fragments of the shell. Doc threw all the prey, he fussily hid the trophies in very capacious bags.

  Kolyvan took six steps forward. As if in a chess game, we were slowly advancing along the game board. However, there were many figures against us, and only three of us, not counting the pets. Given my shooting, I am probably in the rank of the mad horse with long-range magic. Orbit was – the queen? And Doc was the king. He did not attack, only healed. And if we lost the healer, our chances of passing the dungeon would drop to zero. Koly
van? If you took into account the mammoth, it is all a straight-line rook knocking in his way through. It would be more logical to call him a chess elephant, but the mammoth did not only “walk” diagonally.

  Raising my hands, I sent two fireballs over the water. And then two more. Two ghosts rose ahead of me, dragging the resisting eel behind them. The ghosts rushed to the sides of the corridor in time and the fireballs only struck the snake’s wet body. No sooner had the enemy come to his senses, as he was overtaken by another double scorching blow. Only then did the eel, with a familiar hiss, fall into the water. And rushed towards us at a great speed, hoping to avenge himself.

  “There were two more crabs ahead...” Said Orbit.

  “Got it,” I said, covering the corridor space with a poisonous, thorny forest. The eel was quick, but it would not easily slip between the sharp needles.

  We moved forwards. A real board game where a lot depended on luck. Sometimes we did twenty steps. Sometimes only two. But not once, in dozens of extremely fierce battles, did we retreat. Even that time when, from under the arch of the corridor, we were attacked by a Gikran, which was like a bat devoid of wings, and without hair — just nasty gray skin with black spots, a vile, goggle-eyed muzzle, and a jaw clawed with a hundred teeth-needles hanging wide to reveal his thick tongue, which was full of holes. The monster had turned his own tongue into a leaky fishing net. And in some of the holes in the terrible tongue there were swarming white worms, and bright blue blobs, mingled with the saliva of the Gikran. Was it some new poison? I did not know — but, out of fear, o we scored a hundred and twentieth level monster in under a minute, not even letting the ugly creature run down the ceiling. The fear lasted a lot longer than that, and during this time, one of the crabs almost reached the trunk of Kolyvan. But we managed it … and again moved forward a dozen steps.

  The Gikran became the harbinger of the coming horror — the situation in the already gloomy, but soon the dungeon became even more oppressive. The sound of battles could be heard from all sides. Judging by these sounds, someone was torn alive, drowned, or beaten against the wall. The water rose higher, and now the crabs were hiding inside it, and they could remain unnoticed until the moment of attack. We almost died from one of these ambushes, involving an electric eel — if it was not for the mammoth, whose fur smoked on top and froze with wet icicles from below. The huge beast leaned against the rock, temporarily weakened by the electricity.

  But we coped again. We survived. We raised health Kolyvan, and healed ourselves. Trying not to pay attention to the eerie sounds, we continued our journey into the cacophony. And then the foamy water came in. The first fish appeared — harmless ones. We ignored them, pushing them aside.

  Signs, tips and threats. There were plenty of them, but they were hidden. I missed almost all of the tips — both in my inattention, and because of how busy I was. Orbit was as busy as me, but he noticed much more. He easily read all the messages, although at times they looked ridiculous — shapeless blobs, stains on the wall, worn away runes, and deep scratches reminiscent of the agony of an unknown clawed creature.

  Following the instructions of the elf, we passed through the side corridors and fearlessly jumped into dark holes. We broke through thin partitions, flew into the water with a splash. Skeletons clothed in decaying skirts of the coarsely painted palm fiber fell on top of us, fiercely clapping their jaws, their necklaces of shell rattling on their bone clavicles. Who were they? Who were these builders who were obviously buried alive? We broke through the wall three times. And three times into each of the passages the water gushed, flooding the underground passages which had once been dry.

  I blocked my messages. Orbit did the same. Doc was the unfortunate one who kept in touch with the outside world. I asked him not to convey to me the messages of Sleepless, since they were all the same anyway — find a way out and point us in the right direction. We will help you, Ros! Only Malice did not try writing this. And Whisper. They both very much wanted to get in, but avoided mentioning the Sleepless.

  Sometimes I still heard from Doc. Received crumbs of news from the outside world. And the chronology of the news turned out to be entertaining. Every time we broke through another stone and let the ominously boiling and rising water go where it was not allowed to enter for a very long time, the birds over the top of the cliff and around its upper third started circling faster and cutting the stone deeper and deeper. And the feathered flyers became more aggressive — there were several attacks on the dragon and on other birds around them. The golden dragon and knight Florian occupied the central position on the top of the cliff and spread out on the rock, slowly turning into a generously gilded rug. Florian prayed to the heavens.

  But our actions inside the dungeon led to the opposite effect — the birds did not stop. They turned into an even more formidable frenzied force. The local natives who saw it were terrified. They began to pray — to some deity we had not been aware of.

  In a word — our campaign for mana had turned into something much more formidable. And it all started so simply … Now the Black Baroness personally monitored the situation and waited. What was she waiting for? Oh, definitely something — her own words.

  Trouble…

  And the bald elf read the letters written and scratched on the stones with delight, sometimes cheerfully scratching the back of his head. He looked happier every minute. I was waiting patiently for some news, as well. I was waiting for a break. And there I was going to question Orbit. But there was no safe place yet. We had been fighting for hours. There was still strength left in us. But a little breather would not hurt.

  I did not want to question him now — I did not want to distract the wise conductor. Thanks to his instructions, we constantly managed to avoid danger, such as particularly large numbers of monsters concentrated in the dungeon. I saw such a conglomeration from a hole in the wall — inside the oval room there were two dozen wandering crabs, and between them lay an eel in the water, paying no attention to the Gikrans crying under the ceiling.

  The undead also wandered there, and in the far corner, hidden by the darkness, a huge figure, very reminiscent of a Graver or some kind of its sub-species.

  The second reason I did not want to interfere with Orbit - Kolyvan. The mammoth was frigging huge. And very often we had to abandon this or that passage - the furry elephant simply did not fit. We had to look for another way. One thing was good enough - thanks to constant changes in our path, our map quickly filled up quickly and became overgrown with detail. When there was a second to rest, I climbed onto the back of the mammoth and together with Doc we put marks on the map, indicating the points where the monsters had appeared, where we had broken through walls, where we had found clues and warnings. We could ask a lot of gold for such a map. But gold interested me less than something else. I was hungry for mana. And I longed for ancient knowledge … like the elf, who mentioned his desire to find hidden knowledge here. Not magical spells, but some kind of knowledge. Interesting…

  Three times, we had to swim. And it was not fun, not bathing in the warm waters of some peaceful tropical lagoon. We boldly plunged into the stone basins cleared of electric eels, swam from five to fifteen meters in crystal clear water and emerged in a completely different place in the dungeon. For the third time, even after twenty meters of swimming, there was no way out of the underwater trap. Rushing under the water, I miraculously found a gap between the ceiling stones, and, having reached it, found an air pocket. The next minute was spent dragging Kolyvan up to the ceiling. Once we got up to it, we rested — having almost died, after all. Beside our faces and the snake lying on Doc’s head, a trunk thirsty for air stuck out from the water. Hardly had we had time to catch our breath and consult the map, as Kolyvan started suddenly twitching — he was being attacked by an unknown whitish snake. It is hard to describe my horror when I realized that the thick body of the snake was so huge in length that it simply did not fit into the underwater passage and went through some hole in the w
all.

  The monster was terrible … the 200th level, and of incredible power, with a flat snout and long beams of tentacles instead of eyes, as well as a large mouth that hid a long hollow spike. The mouth was not for swallowing. He was a giant underwater bloodsucker. And he had attacked the back of Kolyvan, plunging the stinger deep into his body.

  We could not kill the Titanoghar - as some unknown Valdirian biologist had named the horrible creature. We ran away. The huge snake followed us. And only thanks to its blindness and our maneuvers, were we soon able to tear ourselves away from the ancient underground monster.

  Kolyvan limped … limped still, even after Doc had completely restored the health of the elephant. And since the mammoth limped on both hind legs, his carrying capacity and walking speed decreased. The white giant snake had poisoned the mammoth. But we still managed to walk. We were safe. And we found a place for a rest - in one place the corridor expanded substantially. The notch was large enough to house us all. Hundreds of incomprehensible signs, letters, clumsy drawings and curves covered the walls. It seemed that, once, a scientist or a madman had resided here, suffering from a mania of graphic self-expression.

  Doc was working his spells over the panting and moaning mammoth. I stood guard on the unsteady border between light and darkness, looking fearfully at the dark, which was filled with a weeping echo. Now I knew how our primitive ancestors felt, living in caves. A shaky, shimmering light, the beasts howling in the night, children crying in the depths of the shelter, the faint hope of seeing the next dawn …

  Orbit became paralyzed. In a figurative sense – as soon as he saw the symbols, he stiffened, his glance glued to them and completely disconnected from the surrounding world. Even shaking him did not help. But we used the rest, so his temporary “stasis” worked to our advantage. We wouldn’t have to sit next to someone so anxious, who had to be controlled so that he wouldn’t go wandering.

  “Learn this, boss,” said Doc. He had left Kolyvan for a moment, and handed me a strange stone casket.