by Dakota Krout
My two highly favored beings were slowly and steadily moving toward the base of the room, so I made a pile of high-powered Cores on the ground to entice them further. Then I sat back to watch as they pushed and strained to become stronger, seeming to understand that the first being to make it there would become the first Boss of this floor. I loved being a dungeon.
Chapter Fifty-seven
Queen Brianna looked away from the ‘negotiations’ that were currently happening, wiping blood off her face as it tickled its way down her cheek. That Dwarf had been far too stereotypical, unable to change or bend in the face of overwhelming power and evidence. She knew this would happen, yet it was still disappointing. Something… something had changed, though, and it took her two more deep breaths to figure it out.
“It smells like… Silverwood pollen!” her hushed voice rang through the sudden silence, the words leaving her lips before she could consider not saying them. She cursed the faux paus as people tried to slip away from the negotiations as soon as they understood the gravity of the situation. With a touch of power, she called Moon Elves out of various locations and had them reveal themselves. “No one leaves. Secondly, the Dark Elves own all products of the tree according to a deal with the landowner that the Guild promised to uphold, so before you get any ideas, understand that we will slay anyone we find stealing pollen.”
“Your Majesty, permission to collect pollen?” The Moon Elf Elite that instructed Dale on fighting stepped into the room and bowed, a team of four others matching the movement.
Brianna nodded and spoke, “Permission granted-”
“Gomei.” The Moon Elf interrupted her. “It is something Dale started calling me that I thoroughly enjoy, and I would like to be known by this name in this location if you would allow it.”
“Understood. Is there any significance to the name?” Brianna noted The Master’s eye twitching as he held himself back from commenting on the derailed discussion.
“Ah. Yes.” Gomei almost smiled, and even the slight twitch showed more mirth than Brianna had ever seen from him. “Dale calls me ‘Grumpy Old Moon Elf instructor’ under his breath and turned it into an acronym. He thinks I don’t hear him, but I plan to use it as a training aid for our next lesson.”
The tension in the room broke when Gomei and his team vanished at the end of his explanation. Chuckles rang through the room, and The Master used the shift in attitude to press forward and extract promises of aid from all the races. The Dwarves were the hardest to convince after the recent display of power, but they knew there was no real choice. The fact that The Master offered certain powers and rare resources that were needed by each of them may have also played a part in their attitudinal shift. He was not above bribery.
After he had gained binding agreements from each of them, The Master turned the conversation over to High Mageous Amber of the Portal Guild. She stood in front of the room and began detailing her needs and the requirements of each of the people present. “...so not only do we need you to put forward the effort at a breakneck pace, we need it to be perfect. I’m sure I don’t need to remind you all that the fate of the world, the actual world is at stake here. There will be no surviving this calamity, this madness. Xenocide threatens every single person, being, and object on the planet. Only through our newly born alliance do we have a chance to hold off the desolation of our homes!”
After her slightly odd-phrased but impassioned speech, the groups slowly scattered. They left the floating dungeon through the portal, eager to get their people working. They didn’t have an abundance of time, that much was obvious. As the representatives of the different races moved around the skyland, the black-clad Moon Elves were moving toward the Silverwood tree. The unseen squad ran through the final layers of the dungeon, quietly remarking upon the Mage's Recluse and making plans to visit and claim a place to live.
When they got to the last known location of the Silverwood tree, they found the guards on duty standing around with faces filled with either panic or longing. Gomei stepped out of the shifting shadows and took them by surprise. “Where is the tree?”
“Oh, abyss,” the guard leading the group muttered as quietly as he could. “High Lord-”
“Gomei. Just Gomei from now on.”
“Right. Um. Lord… I mean, Gomei, the dungeon created a new level and has descended. We attempted to follow, but… we are not sufficiently strong enough to survive the next floor. We believe the dungeon reached the A-ranks, and the power of the monsters on the next floor attests to this fact. We sent a message to the Princess but have not gained a response. Frankly, I thought that you were here to investigate.” The guard seemed to become more at ease as he spoke, relieved to have such a powerhouse coming to take over. His tension returned when Gomei spoke.
“Foolish child.” Gomei’s voice was tight with anger. “Has anyone else gone down there?”
“No, Lord-”
“Do you not smell the… ah… you are all so young and have never had the chance to produce offspring. I see.” Gomei’s word made the guards flush with embarrassment and resentment. “That scent in the air, the sweet tang of the unknown and unpredictable? The Silverwood tree is blossoming, and pollen is available for collection. Learn this scent well, for it means the continuation of our race. Stand aside, and ensure that only Dark Elves progress. Any others that you cannot stop… ensure you learn who they are so we can end them.”
The Moon Elves moved forward as a single unit, sweeping past the Dark Elves who were now focused on ensuring that no one would pass. Gomei started leading his people along a strange staircase leading downward. The stairs had hard turns that hid what was both above and below, making him feel itchy, like a trap was awaiting him. Gomei glanced at everything portrayed along the walls, knowing that the dungeon liked to offer hints toward what was coming.
“Turn back! Only death awaits!”
“Yoo-hoo! Big summer blowout!”
Gomei ignored the screaming stones that tried to startle them or induce fear; they had been a constant companion in the tunnels leading to and past the Manticore. What actually bothered him was the utter lack of information on the walls. There were oddly-glistening spiders etched into the walls, strange abstract shapes that held hints of knowledge. Spotters would be trapped here for weeks if they ever managed to reach this level, only looking for the ‘hidden meaning’. Gomei shook his head in disgust. Seeking knowledge for no purpose, only to suppress that knowledge anyway? Pointless.
They reached the end of the stairs and paused as they took a collective inhalation. The air here was suffused with the scent of the Silverwood tree, but more than that, it was filled with power. There was a battle royale playing out between beings that made a near-zero amount of sense to Gomei. They were blobs of… Mana? They were generating power though, not losing it like typical constructs do. Not only that, but their basic attacks were as strong as full-powered incantations from human Mages. That one seemed to be pure lightning! It crawled across the ground at speeds the others couldn’t match, targeting a water-based being that had no defense against it. As the water boiled, the lightning beast seemed to feed upon it, taking on a new form and slipping over the rim of a gigantic hole in the ground.
“This is unusual,” Gomei spoke aloud for the benefit of his followers. “Be on your guard; we need to attack a lesser version of these things and learn the weaknesses.”
A few brutal blows later, they had determined that the only way to destroy the creatures was to either smash or remove the Core they carried around. This was no easy feat, as the Core was surrounded by a shell of minerals and Mana. Attacking the body of the creature may separate some of its power, but it did no permanent damage. If they had been much weaker, the Moon Elves would have been in serious trouble. When they had removed a Core, the other beings in the area had swarmed after them. The simple expedient of tossing the Core away had caused the Mana-things to fight each other instead of them, and so they had taken to using a removed Core as a way to
clear a path to the rim of the hole.
Looking over the edge nearly killed one of the others as he was pulled forward by a strong force, but Gomei reacted swiftly enough to yank the oddly heavy Elf back to safety. “What was that? What did you see?”
The Elf, though internally shaken, responded smoothly, “There appears to be a powerful gravitational force in the pit. There are two ramps leading downward which are filled with these things in various forms. A light at the bottom of the pit seems to indicate that the tree and dungeon Core are hidden in an adjacent room. Also. Good catch.”
Gomei nodded at the thanks, not bothering to waste time making eye contact. “Let’s go.”
They stepped onto the ramp and could instantly feel the increased weight. Gomei stopped them and looked closely at the Inscriptions that seemed to flow around the entirety of the conic hole. “I see. These Runes are all linked. The weight will be extreme at the base; if at any point any of you are too encumbered to fight correctly, we will set you as rear guard. Make sure to speak up. Do not damage the Runes.”
He pointed out the linkages throughout as he spoke, then looked them all in the eye to denote his seriousness. “You see how this place is shaped? Destroy the Runes, and we couldn’t run fast enough to escape the blast. I doubt we would escape unscathed, though I have no doubts the dungeon and tree will be fine. With Runes breaking… who knows what could happen? We might even survive it but be sent elsewhere.”
They began walking downward and tossed an elemental off the ramp to see what would happen. The creature screamed like a boiling teapot as it was crushed in midair, shattering its Core before ever even reaching the bottom. The water released from its death hit the ground like a chunk of granite tossed from a building, slightly deforming the ground. Gomei spoke softly once more, “Don’t fall off. That might even be enough to severely damage us if done too fast. Until we can test it, assume it is deadly.”
They continued downward, finding it harder and harder to progress. Not only were they hampered by the gravity - which was somehow becoming strong enough to actually impede them - but the elementals were starting to become powerful threats. As they went deeper, the Mana was at such a density that their weapons were becoming useless without powerfully enhancing them. Gomei was still able to smash through with his techniques, and unless the others did something similar, the Mana - and therefore the Cores - were strong enough to resist instant destruction.
A little over halfway down, one of the Elves stopped and nodded, indicating that this was as far as he felt safe going. Gomei tried not to be disappointed, but he understood. His students were fresh into the A-ranks, and Gomei himself was only at A-five. These… things were strange and attacked in nerve-fraying ways. Not a single one of them followed the same attack pattern, which was frustrating to the logical Assassin. Another Elf needed to stop a short while later, and a third was forced to stop by Gomei when the Elf began sweating. That was a reaction he hadn’t seen on an A-ranker in a long time and showed the massive strain he was under.
The final Elf and Gomei were looking at a much more solid-looking construct, a sickly, boiling-stone spider. They were only a short distance from the bottom, and Gomei made a mistake in his impatience. Instead of smashing the creature, he tossed it over the edge. He had evidently expected it to be destroyed, and it almost happened. Instead, the spider landed on the ground. Specifically, it landed on a cache of Cores and began draining and incorporating them right away. Added to that was the fact that I started dropping the floor, and soon there was five feet of open space between the last gravity Runes and the new floor height.
The spider, no longer forced to maintain a perfect shape, began ballooning upward and was now precisely five feet tall and nine feet wide. Gomei saw the transition happening and rushed forward, diving past the spider and into the room with the Silverwood tree. “I’ll get the pollen, the rest of you get out of here!”
The molten spider watched the Elves flee, even as its power continued to skyrocket. Over the course of ten minutes, as Gomei gently scraped pollen from the tree, the spider being reached B-rank nine. It watched consideringly as its nemesis, the golden water elemental, slowly and continuously worked to gather power. It would eventually challenge the spider, but the new boss would be ready. It folded its legs and shrank down, appearing to become nothing more than a darkly glowing boulder. Every time a new Core appeared on the ground, a fiery leg would grab it and pull it in. At this rate, it would reach the A-ranks in days.
Gomei looked at the palm-sized purple bag he held in his hand. It was filled to the brim with pollen and would be enough to birth a thousand new Elves. He bowed to the tree and the Core that resided under it, giving his respects. His race had been on the brink of destruction; this would save it. “I thank you both. I shall return to collect the next batch in a decade. Dungeon, I want you to know that this room is going to become the training grounds of the Moon Elves. I have never found an area for resistance training that was this beneficial to my people.”
Obviously, there was no response, but Gomei felt as though the dungeon approved. A swirling portal snapped into place, and Gomei could see the fourth floor through it. He stepped through, allowing the gateway to wink out behind him. It seemed that this was a floor that the dungeon wouldn’t allow others to skip. Gomei nodded approvingly; that floor could have even been dangerous for him, so he agreed that others should need to prove their mettle with each attempt.
Chapter Fifty-eight
“Nah, I kinda like the idea that people can’t just pop down here.” Dani grabbed a stray bit of Mana, burping lightly as she absorbed it. “Mm! I like those. I know they don’t actually do anything for me, but they are super tasty. Right, the portal. Keep it as a one-way, in my opinion. Maybe put a really high-payout token station in here though? Also, there was no loot from the elementals.”
“Plus, that Elf basically just promised that we would have high B-rankers and low-to-mid A-rankers in here.” Dani was getting excited at the prospect. “Just think how much more power we are going to be able to get from them! We are going to be the training ground of the Moon Elves!”
“You think they will stop other people from coming onto the floor? Oh, I hope not!” Dani was now zipping around being agitated, so I took a few moments to create a bubble around Grace that repelled Mana. I had been doing it manually, but if I needed to turn my attention away, I didn’t want her accidentally popping. Now, she chased after the sparkles, and they would curve around her no matter how creative she got. Why did it feel so wrong when I laughed at her failed attempts?
I felt a ripple pass through ambient Mana in the area and looked around. The Master was standing at the top edge of the cone, looking down at the view below. He stepped over the edge, landing lightly on the floor.
Aranea unfolded its legs with a high-pitched hiss as the humidity in the air was boiled. A heat haze settled over the area, obscuring the spider with a mirage of shifting light. It reached its full height… and impacted the back wall with enough force to crack the stone and make pieces of the protective coating around its Core flake off. Dani, being the brave
ball of light that I knew and loved, zipped out to hover a few feet from the man as he approached the side room where my Core was contained.
“Hey! Listen up! You’re a jerk, and I really dislike that we have to work with you,” Dani’s voice made the man freeze up, his eyes narrowing a bit. “That said, I think that going forward, I can put the past behind us. I know that you had something messing with your mind, making it hard to see right and wrong. You’re still going to need to earn my trust, no matter how strong you are. Also, thank you for not breaking Aranea. Cal really likes it.”
“You are a whirlwind of conflicting emotions, Wisp,” The Master let a grin appear on his face, “but I like how upfront you are. I am here bearing gifts.”
He upended a storage device onto the table. “This contains the majority of my personal Runes, both ones I know and ones I have collected but cannot understand. Over here… these are the secret materials each race has found. Their conductivity for the basic affinities are-”
“We know all of those. Also? Rubies? Really? We know that Scarletite is at least five times as effective.” Dani’s words made The Master’s jaw drop, the first really human thing I had seen from him.
“These are some of the most jealously guarded secrets of the races, and you shout them at me because I got them wrong? I know craftsmen that would kill to learn these secrets, and you shout them in anger. Just. I am amazed. Are the Runes at least useful?” The Master winced when he saw that the books and stacks of paper he had brought were gone.
