by Dante King
Did it want to feed on Puck? Would presenting the imp to the forge allow me to summon more minions?
It was a diabolical scheme. Did I really have what it took to sacrifice a creature who’d given his life in service to me? All for an experiment that might not even prove successful?
Puck was a dungeon champion, and one of only a handful of sentient creatures I’d met so far in this world. Killing him for an experiment was a stupid idea. Besides, I already had the Infernal Essence of dozens of creatures inside my jewel, and even that hadn’t been enough to fuel the forge.
The method of ‘turning on’ the soul forge was lost to me, at least for now.
But at least it was something. Something that would send my dungeon’s progression into hyperdrive if I could only figure it out.
Despite the slight disappointment, a grin pulled at my lips as I walked into the center of the polished antechamber.
“Zagorath,” I breathed. “Thank you, Lilith.”
It was mine. It was the beginning of my empire.
And it could only grow larger and more beautiful from here. I could forge the Sinarius Realms anew, bathe them in blood and darkness and the glory of the beautiful demon goddess who had given me divine power.
“Oh, but there is something else, Master,” Puck said. “I would have mentioned it before, but I was so taken by the soul forge. It is the greatest relic mentioned in all my legends, you see, and I—”
“What do you have to tell me?” I cut him off.
“I spotted a troll while I was scouting. He is ascending the mountain path. I was not sure whether he was the one you feared would pursue you.”
“Did he bear the mark of the sand pirates?” Bertha asked.
“Marks?” Puck wilted from the sudden interrogation.
“A tattoo on his back,” the half-troll said. “Looks like a blood-red crescent moon.”
“Ah, I do not remember. Possibly. He had a hideous scar crossing his right eye. That’s all I know.”
“Gavin,” Bertha said with a nod. “It has to be. I attempted to hide our tracks, but he is an expert hunter who worked with the Sand Pirates. He will have no trouble finding us here.”
“Then we’ll prepare our dungeon for its first diver,” I said with a smile.
I could hardly wait.
Chapter Fourteen
“Master, I am unable to express my sorrow for having vexed you,” Puck said as he flew above my jewel.
“Well, I’m not angry,” I said. “I probably should be since you ought to have mentioned Gavin as soon as you returned. Honestly, I’m too damned excited to be mad with you.”
“Excited? Oh, yes! You are a dungeon, so you’ll be wanting to destroy anyone who enters your gates. Well, you don’t yet have gates, of course, but I am speaking in a metaphor, you understand?”
“I understand.”
Puck was starting to get on my nerves, and I was wondering whether it might have been a good idea to sacrifice him to the soul forge. Maybe he’d become less annoying after he evolved into a stronger creature.
“You’ve found a soul forge!” the imp yelled. “You can overwhelm him with sheer numbers. We won’t even have to fight him.”
I gritted my teeth, and my fangs curled against my skin. The soul forge wasn’t working yet, and unless I missed my guess, it needed something other than Infernal Essence, something more than I currently had to even start it up. Sure, it was a glowing monstrosity that looked a little intimidating, but I doubted Gavin would be deterred by a hunk of metal that didn’t do much except shine brightly.
The way Bertha now gripped her poleaxe like she was trying her damnedest to strangle it wasn’t encouraging either. Chances were, Gavin had all the intelligence of Bertha’s mother, and was far more dangerous than Jeff had been. He was the patriarch of the troll’s family, and a Sand Pirate to boot. I hadn’t encountered the band of pirates before, but the way Bertha said their name suggested they were hardened warriors.
I reached out with my consciousness to the jewel. In a second, I felt my being whirl back inside the now-familiar jewelled surface. But I was more than that, now. I was every inch of this dungeon. I was every step, every curve of the ceiling, every inch of the floor. I was a living, breathing, Infernal death-trap. Except—I hadn’t actually made any traps yet.
My elvish avatar had only spent a little over ten minutes outside my jewel, so he had fifty minutes to deal with the troll. I planned on using the most efficient method of taking care of Gavin, which meant enthralling him. I could probably force him to throw himself into a trap, but I had yet to design one. Quickly, I cast my mind over ideas, instantly settling upon the best option, the only ability I’d seen when Lilith had infused my soul with this jewel.
The humble Spring Trap.
Its structure and its composition were already in my mind. The trap was a simple, reflex-based mechanism built into a flat surface. Razor-sharp points would spring reflexively out of the upper layer, puncturing any creature unfortunate enough to trigger it. I hadn’t seen Gavin, but if he was anything like I’d come to expect from Jeff or Bertha’s mother, he was a stony mass of Infernal Essence. He probably wielded a weapon the size of a skyscraper or something.
Before I jumped straight into building a Spring Trap, I needed a backup plan in case the first failed. If I was somehow unable to enthrall Gavin, then a second tactic would have to come into play. I glanced around my dungeon to assess what else might be useful. Keeping the entrance tunnel sensitive to any disturbances in the air around it, I cast my mind over my dungeon. There wasn’t a single object here that would help against an intruder.
Something occurred to me when my senses drifted over the soul forge, and I realized I could use it as a distraction. As my senses washed over Bertha, I also realized she’d be incredibly useful. She was the one who could most closely match Gavin in close combat. Puck, with mobility and shadow-spheres, could slow him down and distract him. Then Bertha could either kill him or draw him to my trap, and that would probably enough to bring the huge troll down.
It had to be. I couldn’t let the troll walk out of here with my core.
The form of the trap was relatively simple; spikes shot out from holes drilled into the floor with a pressure-trigger beneath the floor to activate it. The trigger required the firm bread-rock for its structure and the spikes needed obsidian because of its brittle sharpness. There was no electric cabling, no moving gears, or anything of the sort. The name made me think there’d be a kind of spring mechanism, but it worked reflexively, just like a leg kicking when you tapped its knee with a hammer.
Where to put it?
Hell, where was better than the center of the antechamber?
I focused on the newly-formed trap and felt my will warm up the device. I vibrated the rock beneath until the stone liquified and became malleable, and then slotted the spikes underneath. The effect was instantaneous. All it needed now was for someone to step on it.
Zagorath built Floor Spike Trap (Obsidian + Bread-rock)
Cost: 300 Physical Essence
“Wish I’d brought a whetstone,” Bertha muttered as she glanced over her weapon’s keen edge.
“We’ll have to make do,” I relayed back.
I explained my plan to her and Puck, and their mouths set into firm lines of determination.
“I’ll make you proud,” Bertha said.
“What can I do?” Puck asked, whipping around the half-troll’s head.
I fixated on him, sending a silent answer. “What you do best, Puck.” My jewel glowed with an evil gleam. “Annoy him. Throw as many of those shadow-spheres as you can. Fly around his head. Keep the pressure off Bertha and give her an opportunity to finish him off.”
“I will.” He cackled, and then moved. His form became a blur as he shot toward the edge of the tunnel and perched on the opening above the stairs. “He’ll regret the day he faced you, Master!”
“Bertha, leave me in the soul forge,” I messaged her.
/> My beautiful champion nodded, retreated quickly to the forge, and placed me by one of the grasping fingers.
I let my consciousness flow out to my two champions. While I took comfort in the magical essences that flowed through their bodies, Bertha’s didn’t feel quite right. The arcane substance inside her seemed to be leaking out at a slow but steady rate. The bruises and the scrapes she’d accrued while fighting her family hadn’t healed. No wonder she’d felt the need to rest before. I reached out and touched her with my consciousness. The half-troll relaxed as if comfortable with the touch of my mind.
“When are you building me a replacement bed?” she asked me wordlessly, a playful smirk touching her face, despite the circumstances.
“Gavin first,” I answered her. “Rewards later.”
I took my remaining Infernal Essence and focused on her minor wounds. They were dried but still causing her pain. I examined her in the same meticulous manner I’d done with my stairs, antechamber, and the tonnes of stone and obsidian I’d consumed. She moaned softly with pleasure as I caressed her wounds, infusing her body with the Infernal Essence.
The scrapes, bruises, and cuts flowed over emerald skin and became whole once more. So that was how I kept my champions at fighting strength—I just needed to feed them Infernal Essence.
Damn, I was learning fast.
It would’ve been nice not to have a huge fucking troll breathing down my entrance, though. Even before he graced my tunnel, I could feel his footfalls vibrating from above, his massive weight causing the ceiling on my dungeon to shudder.
“He’s coming,” I warned my champions.
A massive troll with bulging muscles beneath wart-covered skin exploded through the entrance. He lifted a pig-like snout and roared between two curved tusks shoving through his lips. A hefty mace built from gnarled wood rested in his palms, a huge chunk of stone bound to the top of its handle.
Something about the weapon was distinct from those I’d seen so far in this world. A rune was carved into the wood, just beneath the weapon’s rocky head. I could detect Infernal Essence empowering the magical symbol, infused to this mace in the same manner as the cable cars and soul forge. I muttered a wordless curse. It made sense that I could infuse weapons with essence.
Gavin made another bellow, a deafening sound that reverberated around the sleek walls of my lair. I mentally winced at the noise but ignored it and then flowed back toward my Spring Trap.
We had one chance at this. We needed to cripple this prick before he could throw a further spanner in the works.
The muscle-bound troll charged down the stairs, and I couldn’t help thinking that next time I decided to get all genocidal on a family, I was going to make sure to be thorough about it.
“Where be you, Imp?” Gavin roared as his feet crashed against the stairs and cleared them three at a time. “You killed my pretty! And my Jeff!”
Bertha stepped out of the soul forge alcove, and I made a mental note to come up with a sufficiently awesome name for the space later. The half-troll’s green skin glowed with the light from my gem and the forge itself. Her weapon seemed to shine in the same light, but even that was nothing compared to the lethal brilliance now shining from her eyes.
“I killed her, Gavin. And Jeff. All of them.”
Gavin pulled to a halt, momentarily shocked at Bertha’s appearance. “Bertha? Did Charlie make you do it?”
“Charlie is dead. My master made Jeff kill him.”
“Master?” Then Gavin’s face hardened into a mask of unadulterated hatred. “Weakling! You will pay.”
Well, so far this was going swimmingly. Gavin had the same number of brain cells as Jeff. Bertha smirked and twirled her poleaxe while she shifted her weight from foot to foot. She tilted her head as she looked over her stepfather, radiating confidence and defiance.
“They were weak. And old. They left Lilith in the shadows, just as you have. As everyone has. And they paid with their lives. I serve the Viceroy of the Goddess now.” The smirk widened into that berserker grin of hers. “You will fall, as they did.”
“That’s my girl,” I whispered to myself.
Gavin lunged forward far faster than his bulk suggested he could, and I caught sight of some kind of tattoo branded into his back. It could have been mistaken for an old wound, but a closer inspection told me it was a tribal marking, a crescent moon stained the color of blood. It was the marking Bertha had spoken of, and I could sense the Infernal Essence radiating from it as it fed the weapon in Gavin’s hand. The substance didn’t stop there but surged through the weapon and back into his body. It was enhancing his speed somehow, and I knew this fight would be far more difficult than our brawl with Jeff.
The huge troll raced at Bertha, covering the space of my antechamber in a few striding bounds. Every footfall reverberated through me, and I felt the point of impact precisely where they fell. I could predict where his next step would go, and realized he was going to run straight past my only trap.
True to my prediction, he vaulted straight over the section of floor. Magical energy swirled around his tattoo and fed the mighty weapon as he swung. He put his muscular bulk and his momentum behind the swing of the club. My jewel seemed to tighten as I envisaged the stone head cracking Bertha’s skull and sending her brains all over my dungeon walls.
But this wasn’t Bertha’s first fight.
My champion slid to the side, and the club missed her by a mere inch, slamming down into my floor. I felt pain ricochet through my dungeon as he cracked its base. Gavin twisted his torso and heaved the club around for a backhanded blow. Bertha turned it aside with her poleaxe but grunted from the force of the strike, then leaped backward, inches from my Spring Trap.
“Zagorath’s greatest champion has arrived!” Puck yelled as he dive-bombed our enemy.
Gavin backhanded the imp before he could get his claws into the troll’s single eye. Puck crashed into the floor and skittered across before colliding with a wall. Bertha used the distraction to leap into Gavin’s guard, but he was ready for her. He allowed her to get in close and then slammed his head into her skull.
Bertha had recovered quickly as Puck harassed the intruder from above. Gavin still seemed oblivious to the hidden trap I’d constructed, and his feet kept nearing it but never actually struck the surface. Bertha knew where it was located, and she had to constantly avoid stepping on the trigger point. It made her fighting a little awkward, and eventually Gavin would understand just why she wouldn’t go in a certain direction.
We needed to cripple him and take away that horrifying mobility. Right on cue, Puck flapped madly into the fray and hurled a shadow-sphere. The dark ball exploded on Gavin’s chest, but he ran straight through it, seemingly unfazed. The enemy troll’s hate-filled gaze was locked on Bertha, her death his only focus.
The half-troll swept forward and used the reach of the poleaxe to her advantage. She swept the blade across in an attempt to slice at his throat. Gavin seemed to know exactly what Bertha had planned, and easily knocked her strike aside with an elbow. They continued exchanging blows while Puck flung ineffectual shadow-spheres whenever he got a chance.
Gavin was much faster than Bertha, and he probably could have killed her easily. He seemed to toy with her, as though he was enjoying a slow and painful revenge. His club grazed her exposed flesh often, but never hard enough to take her down. He knew my champion’s every movement, as though he’d been trained by the same master.
I thought my champion’s frustrated attempts were all over when Gavin drove his weapon forward and plunged the end of it deep into her gut. She bowed over in pain but gritted her teeth and returned to the fight. She must have adjusted at the last moment and avoided the full-impact of Gavin’s mace.
Puck burst out of the shadows, caught hold of the troll’s matted hair, and tried to drag him toward the trap. Gavin’s head barely moved, the muscles in his neck bulging as he snatched Puck from the air. The imp wouldn’t release his hold, and Gavin tore my
champion free, losing a clump of hair in the process. The troll’s rage bubbled over, and he squeezed the imp within his hands for a split second before he roared and relinquished his grip.
A shallow cut ran across Gavin’s torso, and blood trickled from the wound. Bertha leaped back and balanced her left hand on the ground while she spun the bloodstained poleaxe over her right shoulder.
“Perfect,” I said to Bertha, almost feeling like a ringside commentator.
Puck hauled himself upright, shook his head, then took to the air again. He flew with a little less vigor but thankfully hadn’t been within Gavin’s grasp long enough to cause any serious damage.
“Keep your distance,” I forcefully willed the imp. “More shadow-spheres. Aim for Gavin’s wound.”
My Spring Trap was sadly neglected during the battle, and I’d given up almost all hope that Gavin would step on it. The next time I renovated my dungeon, I planned on either building a path to my traps or placing so many that adventurers couldn’t take a single step without triggering one.
A dark sphere curled around Puck’s tiny fist, and he hurled it at Gavin. This time, Gavin howled with pain when the ball of shadows crashed into him. The corrosive mist seeped into his open wound and turned a scratch into something far worse.
The troll bellowed some unknown obscenity and then swung his weapon again. Shadows crept over the boulder-like head and fortified it with Infernal Essence. I didn’t know the weapon’s full capabilities, but also didn’t want Bertha or Puck to discover them.
“Watch his weapon!” I guided my champions.
Bertha ducked under it as soon as the words left my jewel. She managed to evade his agile swing, then my champion whipped her poleaxe around and cracked the troll’s jaw with the handle. Gavin barely flinched, but slid back, and a surge of satisfaction rolled over me when his right foot touched my trap.
The spikes made an incredibly satisfying snikt sound as they slammed home. I felt the shards of stone powering through his left foot and tearing into his calf muscle. The spikes impaled his bones and forced the troll to a standstill. I chuckled at my enemy’s misfortune, but before Bertha could deal her killing blow, Gavin dropped his mace into his right hand and used his left to wrest his foot free of my trap. Bertha’ poleaxe cleaved thin air and crashed against the floor.
