by Nick Harrow
“I’ll stand watch up here,” she said, “so you’ll know when the next batch of raiders is on its way.”
“Good plan,” I said. “Stay out of sight. There’s no reason for you to endanger yourself.”
“As you wish,” she said, and I felt the wry humor behind her words.
I was glad Nephket had become more comfortable with me. We’d never have been able to work together if she kept treating me like some kind of god.
The wahket finished with their preparations long before the first raiders showed up. The cat women crouched behind the statues and whispered to one another in their excitement, and I couldn’t help but smile from my seat on the cobra throne. It’d been less than twenty-four hours since the cat women had called out to me for help, and now they were the ones fighting to defend themselves.
“Here they come,” Nephket said as she studied the approaching raiders.
I’d been worried that the wahket wouldn’t be able to pick out the weakest treasure hunters, but there’d been no reason to worry. The day’s first band of adventurers seemed even more poorly prepared than the dwarves had been.
Their leader, a willowy elf with a scraggly mohawk and a set of ridiculous tattoos around his eyes, was the first into the dungeon.
[[[Nolas, 1st Level Elf Wizard, 4 Hit Points]]]
Even if I didn’t have special dungeon lord senses, the elf’s armor marked him as a squishy spellcaster. His scrawny frame didn’t look like it could stand up to a stiff breeze, but Nolas didn’t seem worried about his exposure. He strode down the stairs from the entryway with a haughty sneer on his lips and a greedy light in his eye. He saw the treasure at the far end of the hall of statues right away and jabbed his finger toward it.
“Look at that,” he crowed. “Unguarded treasure, free for the taking.”
A human woman entered the room behind him. She rested on a greatsword nearly as tall as she was and shifted her shoulders inside her ill-fitting chain mail. She eyeballed the treasure but clucked her tongue at the elf’s words.
[[[Rael, 1st Level Human Warrior, 12 Hit Points]]]
“This is a dungeon,” she pointed out. “What makes you think that pile of loot is unguarded?”
“I don’t see any monsters,” a snaggle-toothed orc said as he strode into the room. He didn’t wear a single scrap of armor over his muscle-bound physique and carried a strange chain with barbed hooks on its ends. He held the exotic weapon in both hands as he surveyed the room. “Nah, there’s nothing here. Let’s go get the loot.”
[[[Burke, 1st Level Orc Barbarian, 13 Hit Points]]]
Another elf, this one far more suspicious than their leader, brought up the rear. She wore an ornate breastplate inset with sparkling crystals and carried a studded cudgel across her shoulders.
[[[Selana, 1st Level Elf Cleric, 8 Hit Points]]]
“As your priestess, I suggest you proceed with caution,” she said. “The last time we looted an unguarded chamber someone caught an arrow trap in the throat, and we ended up with nothing for our trouble. No loot. No experience. And we owed the Guild healers twenty gold each for healing spells. I do not wish to repeat that miserable failure.”
The orc sniggered at the words, and the mohawked elf frowned.
“You’ll see,” he said. “Let’s go. If the whole place is like this, we’ll be rich before lunch.”
“Or,” I said to myself, “you’ll be very, very broken.”
The raiders made their way down the steps in the same order they’d entered the dungeon, and I had to wonder at the special kind of stupid that put the spellchucker in the lead. Every role-playing game I’ve ever played told me that low-level wizards were frail at best. If you didn’t keep them in the back away from the fight, a stray arrow would knock them off their feet and that’d be the end of your magical artillery.
This elf, though, seemed to think he was way, way cooler than all of that. He led his group into the channel in the middle of the floor and didn’t even bother to look up at the statues that loomed over his head. His eyes were focused on the ladder and the thought of the treasure at its top, and nothing would deter him from his course.
“It’s time to earn your keep, Pinchy,” I said and settled back in my throne to watch the mayhem.
The raiders were halfway down the channel when Burke the Orc cried out.
“What the hell was that?” he shouted.
“That was Pinchy.” I laughed. “And she brought friends.”
The scorpions had emerged from the tunnel where it exited at the rim of the channel and flung themselves down on the raiders. Pinchy had landed on the orc’s back and promptly stung him on his neck, right at the base of his skull. Two more landed on the mohawked elf and buried their stingers in the scrawny muscles of his shoulders.
The elf priestess scrambled back and avoided the scorpions who’d jumped down at her. She held her cudgel in a defensive posture, and the scorpions scuttled from side to side as they looked for an opening for a quick sting or two. I knew they’d respawn back in their lair if she killed them, but I was still nervous for the little guys. Coming back from the dead didn’t mean death was painless. They didn’t deserve that.
The human warrior deflected one scorpion’s stinger with her sword and stabbed at the second one with the tip of her enormous weapon. The greatsword was too long for her to swing as it was intended to be used, and her stab was clumsy and slow. The weapon kicked sparks up from the stone floor, and the pair of scorpions she faced scrambled up its length and jabbed her wrists with their stingers.
The three stung adventurers groaned as the venom took hold. The warrior dropped her weapon and tried to wipe the flood of thick tears from her eyes. The orc was in no better shape; his neck had swelled to twice its normal size, he was blinded by the viscous flood of green fluid from his eyes, and he’d dropped his weapon to feel along the wall in a vain attempt to escape.
“Help!” Nolas, the elf wizard, dropped to his knees and wailed. “I’m blind!”
“I told you!” the warrior woman howled. “I knew this was a bad idea. We should’ve waited for the Guild to give us the go-ahead.”
“You’re all down?” the elf priestess shouted. She danced away from one of Pinchy’s friends, but her counterattack went wide of the mark. “Goddess, I hate being a healer.”
She backed away from her fallen companions as all eight of the scorpions advanced on her position. The elf cleric was quicker than I’d expected and decided the better part of valor was to run like a chicken. She turned and outpaced the scorpions as she bounded up the stairs toward the entrance.
Oh, shit. That was not supposed to happen.
“Neph!” I shouted. “Shut the door.”
If the elf escaped, we were screwed. I did not want the Guild to know what we were doing, and I certainly didn’t want them sending more experienced raiders down here to steal my core and end my fun and games. She had to be stopped at all costs.
My vision shifted to Nephket’s point of view as she scrambled out of the tree and raced toward the dungeon’s door. She’d left it open because none of us had expected these inexperienced losers to make it out of our death trap.
If we survived this mistake, I wouldn’t make it again.
My familiar and the elf reached the dungeon’s entrance at the same time. The elf surprised us all when she swung her weapon at Nephket’s head before the cat woman could slam the door in her face.
I braced myself for the sensation of the weapon crunching into Nephket’s skull and hoped the elf wouldn’t cause any permanent damage. The priestess was bonded to me, but I didn’t think she’d respawn, and I had no healing abilities. If she died...
In that moment, the only thing I wanted was to spring from my throne and carve my way through the raiders with my khopesh. But I didn’t have any ka; I’d spent it all summoning the scorpions. All I could do was watch and hope.
Nephket jerked her head back at the last possible second, and the cudgel’s spiked tip blasted t
hrough the air just in front of her nose. The cat woman shouted in surprise and dropped to all fours.
“I knew you bitches couldn’t be trusted,” the elf snarled. “When I get out of here, I’ll tell the Guild you’re working with the dungeon. We’ll have you all skinned by dinnertime.”
Nephket hissed in rage and leaped forward. For a split second, I thought she was going to claw the eyes out of the cleric and wanted to shout for her to stop. If any of the raiders had injuries that could be traced back to the wahket, the elf wouldn’t have to warn the Guild. The healers would do that job when the fallen adventures popped out of here and appeared in the triage tent with obvious combat wounds. Claw marks on the cleric’s face would be a death sentence for the wahket.
But Neph was smarter than that. She thrust both of her fists forward and into the elf’s chest. The surprise blow staggered the skinny cleric, who took two steps back and almost lost her balance.
The agile elf tried to jump forward to clear the door’s frame, but Nephket was faster this time. My familiar swung the barrier closed and threw her weight against it. The cleric screamed in rage and pounded her cudgel against the wooden barrier.
“I’ll kill you!” she shouted. Her face had transformed into a fury’s mask, and her hateful blows knocked chips of wood from my dungeon’s door.
Then Pinchy and her friends caught up to the elf. They scrambled up her back and found gaps in her armor. They thrust their stingers into the elf’s body and pumped her full of blinding venom.
“Do something!” Nolas the mohawk elf cried. “Heal us!”
“Trying,” the cleric choked. She tried to cast a spell, but she couldn’t see to mark her target.
“Get her into the channel,” I said to Neph. “The venom only lasts for a minute.”
The priestess didn’t waste any time. She flung the door open before I finished my instructions and grabbed Selana’s long hair.
The cat woman dragged the elf down into the channel and left her with her friends. The raiders struggled to escape their doom, but the venom had left them helpless. Blinded, they stumbled into one another and tripped over their own feet.
The Guild’s healers would have a real laugh over these jokers. The raiders would look like fools who’d stumbled into a scorpion’s nest and then taken a nasty fall down a very steep hill.
Idiots.
“Do it,” Nephket said as she climbed up the ladder at the end of the channel. “Finish them.”
“For Lord Rathokhetra!” one of the wahket shouted. The others took up her battle cry, and their voices echoed through the statue chamber like the shouts of avenging angels.
The wahket dragged on the ropes, and the statues fell with a series of resounding crashes that reminded me of rolling thunder. The raiders screamed as the stone smashed the life from them, and they vanished in four rapid flashes of red light.
Dust rose from the bloodied channel, and for a moment all was silent.
The cat women clapped their hands and stamped their feet to shatter the stillness. They howled in victory and pulled one another into crushing hugs. Their exuberance was infectious, and I cheered right along with them. Nephket’s quick action had stopped the elf from escaping, and the wahket had swatted the raiders like flies. I hadn’t even lost any scorpions because Pinchy had led her friends to safety before the statues fell. She was one smart, stabby girl.
Nephket ordered the rest of the cat women away from the statues, and I put the stone monuments back in their proper places with a snap of my fingers. The wahket were impressed by my trick, and they laughed and cheered while the room reset itself.
“Let’s see what we’ve got,” Neph called out, and the celebrating wahket scrambled down into the channel. The claws on their hands and feet made them natural climbers, and they were able to scramble along the rough stone surface with ease. The cat women ferried the loot from the fallen raiders back to the burial chamber and deposited a gem-studded breastplate, a chain shirt, a greatsword, the orc’s bizarre spiked chain, and a mace in the sarcophagus. The thing was almost full now.
“The ka was good,” I said to Neph when she arrived in the burial chamber with the rest of the wahket. “Three motes. Their gear wasn’t worth as much as the dwarves’, though. Not quite six hundred gold, all told.”
“True,” Neph said with a grin, “but we’re just getting started. We have another hour or two before the next batch arrives. Is there anything you need me to do in the meantime?”
“Nope,” I said. “I’m fine. You probably want to close the door behind the next set of raiders, though. That was a close one.”
The cat woman flexed one bicep, and the coin halter she wore jingled when she struck a pose.
“That skinny little elf wasn’t getting past me,” she said with a snarl that was far cuter than it was fearsome. “But you make a good point. No sense taking chances. A runner who made it to the Guild could cause us a lot of problems.”
The rest of the wahket filed out of the room to return to the statue chamber to reset the rope traps. I wished I could do that at the same time I repaired the statues, but the Tablet of Engineering wouldn’t allow me to do anything with the ropes. I guessed it was because they weren’t a real part of my dungeon like the statues. Something told me there were other tablets that would give me finer control over my dungeon. Once I had more ka, I’d look into unlocking them. For the moment, though, the wahket handled the job well enough.
When the last of the cat women left the burial chamber, Neph jumped into my lap and wriggled around until she was comfortable. She tapped my chin with the tip of one claw and nipped the end of my nose with surprisingly sharp teeth.
“We did it,” she said. “Your plan was perfect. We’ll win this.”
I was surprised by Neph’s sudden burst of affection, but I liked it.
“The plan’s not perfect,” I said. “But it is pretty damned good. I have some ideas for improvements, but those will have to wait until I can make some renovations to the tomb. How long until our next set of greedy raiders shows up for their date with death?”
“Half an hour?” she guesstimated. “Something like that. Plenty of time.”
“Plenty of time for what?” I asked.
Nephket blushed. The pink tip of her tongue darted between her full lips, and she took a deep breath that stretched her halter in a very distracting way.
“I didn’t mean to—” she started.
I interrupted her with a kiss. I hadn’t intended to, but she was irresistible.
A visceral shock ran through my body when our lips met. The priestess’s eyelids fluttered as she leaned into me, and her arms tightened around my back. I cradled the back of her head with one hand and hooked the other one around her waist. I pulled her closer as our kiss deepened, and she responded with a full-throated purr.
Time passed in a blur, and it was Pinchy that reminded me that we had to take care of business. The scorpion had very poor eyesight, but her feet were sensitive to vibrations, and she’d detected someone approaching the tomb. They weren’t very close, not yet, but her encounter with the raiders had the scorpion on edge. She wanted me to know of potential trouble.
I liked her initiative, even if it did interrupt the most fun I’d had in months.
“Back to work,” I whispered to Nephket when I came up for air. “Company’s coming.”
The wahket priestess said nothing for a long moment. She stared into my eyes and stroked one of my cheeks with her delicate fingertips. The tips of her claws caressed my face, and it was hard not to imagine how it would feel to have her scratch them down my back.
“I didn’t think it would be like this,” Nephket said. “If I’d known, I would’ve tried to summon you long before the raiders came.”
“If I would’ve known about you, I’d have come looking for this place on my own,” I said. “Nothing would’ve kept me away.”
“I bet you say that to all the wahket,” Nephket said with a giggle. She slipped out of
my lap and straightened her clothes. Her skirt and halter jingled as she adjusted them, and I had a hard time concentrating on anything other than the sight of Nephket.
“Just the one who can see me,” I said.
She laughed at that and left the room. Nephket’s hips swayed with every step, and the coins on her clothes sparkled in the torchlight.
I wasn’t sure it was a good idea to be cavorting with my priestess, but I didn’t really care. We were meant for each other. The next time we were alone...
But there wasn’t time for that.
By the end of the day, the stones were soaked with blood, and my sarcophagus was full of loot we’d taken from the fallen raiders. The wahket had downed four full groups of raiders and stacked close to two thousand gold pieces’ worth of gear in my tomb. I wasn’t sure what to do with all those weapons and pieces of armor, but I had a few ideas.
I’d also accumulated nine more ka from the groups we’d taken out. Added to the two ka I’d spent on scorpions, that brought my total earned ka to eleven.
“Congratulations,” a deep voice murmured in my ear. “Welcome to Level Two, dungeon lord.”
My eyes darted around the room, and I whipped my head around in search of the speaker. There was no one else in my chamber.
“What the hell?” I grumbled.
Maybe this really was all some bizarre video game. I didn’t know how that was possible, but the role-playing mechanics were far too pronounced for it to be anything else.
Then again, there were beautiful cat women all around me.
Maybe this was nerd heaven?
After the rest of the wahket had returned to their homes, Neph stayed with me in my burial chamber.
“You look different,” she said as she removed my headdress and raked her fingers through my hair.
“I am different,” I said. “You’re looking at a second-level dungeon lord. It’s a big day for me. I was kind of hoping for a cake.”
She giggled at that and climbed into my lap. She dangled her legs over the throne’s arm and snuggled up close to my chest.
