by Han Yang
I waited until the immense minions dwarfed me before returning to the mercenary army. Nick rode his command platform into my inner circle, reaching me before we could join the disgruntled Jeer soldiers.
“They’re pissed,” Nick said.
“Was it something I said?” I asked.
“Might as well kill them all,” Nick snorted unhappily.
“But my goblins,” I snickered.
He shook his head. “Not them. I hate to say it, but -”
“Easy fix. Come, let's talk to them,” I said.
We rode forward with my minions piling the best loot into a large stack that towered over the snowy fields. I slowed our advance, ensuring my minions had the time to gear into full war sets minus boots and gloves. They never fit right.
The process lasted at least ten minutes. While I waited, I checked over my stats.
Name: Damien Moonguard
Race: Human
Affiliation: Nordan
Zorta: 141,223.009
Shared Zorta: 31,444.001
Nordan Score: 7,372,217
Ostriva Score: 1,553,774
Location: Moonguard City
Magic Type: Healer
Healer Level: 17
Magic Type 2: Necromancer
Necromancy Level: 13
Necromancer Minions: 33,886/36,000
Necromancer General Level: 8
Necromancer General Mana: 330/330
Shared Mana: 1300
Necromancer General Permissions: All
Fighting Level: Honed
Mana: 1200/1200
Mana Recharge: 14
Strength: 15
Stamina: 15
Dexterity: 15
Constitution: 18
Willpower: 18
Cultivation: 55
Intelligence: 43
Wisdom: 45
Charisma: 33
Tracking: 13
Endurance: 15
Perception: 21
Burst: 15
Reflex: 15
Healing: 15
Melee Combat: 15
Aim: 6
Hunger: 1
Thirst: 1
Aging: 59 years until death.
I had to use the fingers on my hand to count how many minions I had acquired. I had arrived in Opinix with 26,000, and now I had almost 34,000. I sure missed Cecil for moments like these.
When I scanned the undead, I saw almost fifteen hundred minotaurs, twenty-five hundred ogres, a thousand trolls, a thousand orcs, a few hundred tigran, and the rest had to be dran or goblins.
So many of the mercenaries had been turned to mush and now rested in my reserves. A pity, because I really needed the troops more than the Zorta.
Now that they were geared in the loot from the dead, I stationed the minions around the mercenary army. I waved over a voice enhancing goblin.
He knew what to do and immediately covered me in yellow magic.
“To my amazing friends from the Jeer Coalition. You have performed admirably. I hereby grant you favor. Yes, you are free of your contract. Simply go back up to the first floor, exit the door, and rejoin the might of your empire. For the rest of you who wish to join the might of Tribe Moonguard, please stay,” my voice boomed across the cavern.
A brave tigran stepped forward and yelled, “While you can grant us favor, our… those in charge will reject it without a stipend attached. It will be in the contract. You must pay our debt or our time.”
“I paid your debt, in full. Go home or continue down with me. There will be more death, but I have grown the size of our army and my minions are harder to kill than you are, in most cases. Venture back up or become Tribe Moonguard. If you join, I will bring you back to life via my goddess. Yes, I’m a champion.
“I can and have done this. The question is where does your allegiance remain? I know all of you will have families or will want to start one. We have more females than males in Moonguard City, and I gladly welcome any who travel to our domain. Just know that if you leave this formation or whisper of betraying my forces, you will end up like General Garrigan,” I said.
The army hesitated, clearly fatigued from the fighting. While I wanted to give them rest, I didn’t dare let the minotaurs recover.
“Choose now; descend or ascend,” I ordered.
The tigran at the front motioned for the army towards the sixth floor and shouted, “The spendrix will kill any who leave.” He turned to the army. “The necromancer is a champion. We fight for the gods now. I’ll be the one who explains to the pit masters what happened. Right now, we have to work together to survive. I may not swear allegiance to Tribe Moonguard, but I will do whatever it takes for this army to survive.”
The army nodded during the inspirational speech. My minions led the vanguard, and I gave the army a moment to grab any loot they wanted. After that, I ordered a trot towards the minotaur city below us.
“You wake the wurm lords. I fear your opportunity to rescue us passes.”
I shook my head, sensing I was close, only a few floors away.
When the booming voice faded, I joined Nick on the command platform.
“I’m going to extort the minotaurs before returning to the surface. There is no chance in hell I will fall for your trap,” I said.
“We are the edrino, trapped by the wurms, exploited to carve the rock as you see it. Our kind needs a savior. You are close now, meaning we can talk more freely,” the voice echoed in my head.
Nick cued into the fact I was talking to thin air. “Dealing with the voice?”
“Yeah, it said he is an edrino. I’m not buying it, though,” I said with a shrug. “He’s only a few more floors down, but going there has a whole lot of risks. We could be walking into an open maw of a wurm lord that could consume our whole army in a bite. I tend to be the quit while you’re ahead kind of fellow.”
“We can meld stone. We will serve you for ten years and if the wurm lords were active, the ground would tremor. Ask your silly tigran general. Oh wait, you killed him,” the voice sassed.
There were plenty of others with knowledge of the area that I could exploit. I knew my spell provided a whole lot of magic, so I checked my upgrades.
Healer Level 17 -} Healer Level 20 = 95,000 Zorta - (YES) - (NO) - Yes selected.
Revive spell now recharges every 12 hours.
You have connected to Iron Smallfist - name change accepted. Confirm you wish you want to use a revival on this minion (YES) - (NO) - No selected.
I glanced around, looking for a skeleton whose armor should have been on a giant ogre. I found one with a helmet so big two skulls could fit into it.
You have connected to Harrin Warchief. Confirm you want to use a revival on this minion (YES) - (NO) - Yes selected.
Golden beams of light encompassed Harrin until the brightness caused me to flinch. As quick as it blinded us, the revival ended. At level twenty, his rebirth happened in record time.
“Come here, Harrin,” I ordered.
“You slew everyone!” he whined.
“Suppress memories,” I ordered, and he turned into a zombie mode ogre. “Are there edrino nearby?”
“I’m sworn to secrecy.”
“Shit,” Nick said.
“Double shit,” I replied in agreement.
“What happens when a wurm lord awakes?” I asked.
“The ground quakes, and the legions of the deep ascend. The legions drag down the spoils so the wurm lords can feast on the dead. An awakening is rare. The occurrence normally is triggered by hundreds of thousands of losses, and if you reach the tenth floor, it will set off… set off… I have been sworn to secrecy indirectly,” Harrin said.
“There’s wards. Your skeletons will trip them, the tigran too. Oh, and you, the human. However, your minotaur friend can pass them freely. He also contains a magic type to dispel the gate that binds us. We can try to flee before we are killed,” the booming voice in my mind said.
“Conquer floor nine, send a void mage t
o bust the gate, run before the wurm lords realize what happened,” I said with a sigh. “Sounds terribly convenient. Sorry, not interested, even if you are what you say you are. I’ve stirred enough shit that I may need to find a new way home.”
“Void magic is how our prison is opened. Well, one of the ways. However, only a wurm lord can okay a dispersion or the wards trigger awakenings. The tenth floor is also guarded by a hundred thousand waroni. They are impossible to get past without detection and -,” the voice paused. “Caitlyn says hello and to tell you your parents are resettled and happy. Tarla is worried sick.”
“Argg… She knew I wouldn’t care about your plight or your problems. You damn well better be worth the time and risk,” I grumbled.
“Don’t worry. I have a plan, just follow it closely, and we will be fleeing the wurms in no time,” the voice said reassuringly.
Caitlyn whispered in my ear, “With big risks, come big rewards. You must choose, but I approve.”
I tossed my hands up in the air. At the tunnel entrance to descend to floor six, a minotaur waved a yellow flag.
I said, “Might as well tell me that plan now before it’s too late.”
For the next ten minutes, I went from hating the plan to feeling neutral about it, and then to outright approving of it. The last caveat sealed the deal, though.
The edrino could literally rebuild Moonguard City in a day or expand it in a week, or fortify it to new heights in a month. While they wouldn’t fight for me, they would build for me until we both felt the debt of their freedom was repaid.
All I had to do was get past an army of minotaurs, a swamp of matogators, a savanna of goat people called satyrs, and fight waroni while Nick freed ancient beings. What could possibly go wrong?
CHAPTER 17
Wurm Labirnyth - Matogator Floor
Splash!
An eruption of water revealed a ten foot long gator breaching the swampy surface. The beast barely missed the dangled fish it aimed for.
A minotaur archer quickly tracked the animal with his bow drawn tight. I could see the glint in his eye when he knew the shot lined up perfectly
Snap!
Crack!
The arrow burrowed into the animal's skull with the fletching not making it through because of a rope attachment. The gator crashed into the water and a different minotaur hauled in the arrow’s rope.
A few minutes later, a team dragged the gator out of the water before tossing it into a pile of bodies on the road. Skeletons worked to skin and prepare the meat for freezing.
I shifted to take in the amazing scope of the eighth floor.
The swamps, much like the minotaur farm fields and the ogre’s snowy forests, stretched further than the eye could see. Swamps was also a bit of a misnomer. While the terrain was muddy, the water murky, and the thick towering trees minimal - the water flowed at a river’s pace.
A thousand-foot wide bridge laid over the humid biome in a perfect line. The stone structure’s flawless origins led me to believe edrino had crafted it. In sections, big circles curved out to give armies spaces to camp or move aside for faster units.
All along the bridge, hunting teams slew the hungry predators who chased after baited fish. And this was part two of the edrino plan, the part I didn’t hate so much. My army worked to harvest an entire floor of farm stock.
Again, the system of sustainability reared its head. Farming made the world go round, and in this case, the swamps were the dumping grounds for the other floors. No lidka or four-legged lizard people lived here to fight, meaning this entire floor had become an immense farm.
The regular gators lived off scraps, fish, and small animals. Further in, matorgators dominated saltwater, making this an ideal place for me to pad my minion count, farm some food, and earn Zorta. Well, I could fish too, but I wasn’t going after the fish. They were too much work for too little reward.
I reflected on the plan while our clump of leadership progressed down the bridge. Letting the minotaurs live bothered me incessantly. I wanted more skeletons to win the coming war. This wasn’t the time to become soft.
However, the edrino said there would be trade-offs. The minotaur city could afford to capitulate to the necromancer. That was the first part of the plan, and it surprisingly went exceedingly well.
When I saw their city, I realized I probably would have spent a week trying to completely get through the layered defenses. The main factor was that they stopped dying, and I lost the ability to continue to raise the dead for free within their walls.
At the main gate, a towering chieftain greeted us with a million Zorta set at his feet, a hundred wagons lined up behind his gates, and five hundred hunters with weapons relaxed.
The way that the new ruler told the story: the internal struggle among the minotaurs ended with a single spell of aging. Something that Nick knew about, and I simply hadn’t put together. If youthful magic could make an aged minotaur smaller, aging magic could make them big again.
There were rules, and most of them were common sense types, but the big minotaur beside me was the grandson of the previous ruler. During the commotion, he had run to an aging minotaur and returned all those loyal to him to their full size.
In time, the entire city would be converted again. The city lost a good number of its former leaders and residents in the coup due to me, but life would be restored in time to both the ogres and the minotaurs.
The current leader, Bearouth, was a thirty-foot tall minotaur who followed beside my command platform, easily keeping up as my army marched across the bridge.
“Will passing through satyr lands be this easy?” I asked.
Bearouth grunted with a head shake. “Those goat humanoids are a fast desert species, preferring the plains and dry air. Because they’re dumb, they end up being feeder food for the gators and waroni. Even we eat satyr meat.
“In swarms, they’re a threat unless you bring an army, which you have. They won’t attack you directly, choosing to hide behind walls. Unless you linger. Then they will stop their orgies and condense as an army in the millions, and I think you would lose.
“They reproduce quickly with the biggest ones never leaving the cities. They're horny and known to do untoward things to the dead and living. Because of their desires, the youthful will come close to inspect you or see if they can lure you away. This makes them easy to kill in small numbers.”
“I have no intent of entering their territory, and I doubt they will find skeletons arousing,” I said.
The massive minotaur smirked, revealing rows of molars. “Yes… but the wolves would be great bait. Not telling you how to make your Zorta, but we would buy the bodies, and we value the swamps for the preserve that it is. We need to rebuild the numbers of these gators after.
“Which, I not so secretly wish you would slow down to fight the satyrs. You’d win after a gruelling fight, leaving lots of bodies to collect. That and your arrival will be reaching the core cities soon. These floors are but outposts to the majestic homelands we cherish,” Bearouth said, a hint of longing in his voice.
Nick gazed up at the minotaur and said, “I still am shocked you resist the surface so vehemently.”
Bearouth said nothing.
The gators being hauled onto the bridge increased in size as we progressed. I let the army of goblins collect the orbs for me. Instead of dealing with thievery, I ordered everything to go to a parsing mage with twenty percent to be distributed among the ranks of the living.
With the sudden riches, I received for sparing the minotaur city, I could afford to invest in my surviving mages. Which, I made that perfectly clear that all the survivors were now mages.
I didn’t need javelin throwers as much as I needed mages. Now that the army had some funds to upgrade magics that were normally reserved for specialists, there would be a noticeable difference on the battlefield.
In my army, an orc didn’t spend his limited Zorta on strength stats. Skeletons served as infantry, and I constantly upgr
aded them every time my mana refreshed.
Bearouth finished mulling over his thoughts and replied, “We have everything here below the surface. Fresh food, endless allies, entertainment, knowledge, the ability to go on vacations, and the list goes on. Occasionally, something tips the scales from greatness into doom, but for the most part, everyone goes on about their lives. I’m sure the sections of surface ruled by titans are similar.”
I said, “Well, you had wagons at the ready, a bribe that seemed not too painful to let go of, and a very defensible city. All signs of a good life. Not trying to upset Freninick, but I do see the merit for the minotaurs down here.”
“Yes, if it weren’t for the incessant edrino, we’d be much happier,” Bearouth said unhappily. “That’s part of the reason we capitulated instead of fought.”
“Why are the edrino not protected in a secure vault on floor three hundred?” Nick asked with a grunt. “I take it there is an issue with them?”
“There’s no way to shut them up. Imprison them? Yes. Silence them? No. Thankfully, they have to exert mana to talk outside their prison, but that only quiets them for so long,” Bearouth complained.
“Ah… I understand that. The voices are really loud, and you’re so close,” I said.
“A downside and on purpose. I am going to guess here, and you can take my opinion as exactly that. The wurm lords moved the edrino to the surface prisons for a few reasons. The main one is that we have expansions upon expansions ready for our populations.
“That means the edrion have served their purpose. The older generations built all these tunnels, this bridge, the air vents, the aqueducts, and you name it. They are molding masters of the highest order, reforging the world in their image with enough time. The newest generation is happy to be working for the wurm lords because their indoctrination is complete.
“The older members are shoved away from them to bother us near the surface. They obviously won’t just let them go, but there is likely a reason they have them able to be sprung free.
“My guess is that they want them gone, and their escape would be a purpose to strike the surface. Minotaurs like me don’t want to go to the surface to fight a brutal war. There’s simply no reason to do that. I’d rather have orgies and drink wine in excess.
