by Dante King
“I know this marking,” Renkish said, turning his hands over a cleaver. “Only the Sand Pirates had access to it. Makes you quicker than a fucking crossbow bolt. Finally, some luck!”
Heh. He had no idea what was waiting for him on the First Floor.
The other raiders weren’t as satisfied with their scores, and those who hadn’t scored equipment looked on their luckier brethren with envious eyes. If I didn’t plan on killing them all, then there were a whole lot of backs that would end up with the business end of a knife stabbed through them.
After they all gathered outside the corridor leading to the First Floor, Renkish led a discussion about tactics. Most of it sounded like hot air and I tuned out after only a second.
I’d served up the entrée; now for the main course.
I reached out, the tendrils of my consciousness locating the bats hidden above the side altars in the alcoves. With a deafening cacophony of screeches, the creatures swooped from the ceiling and crashed into the backs of the raiders. Fangs sank into two unlucky jugulars before a handful of raiders scurried into the corridor. They were almost at the triggers to my Troll Iron Spike Traps, but they paused to gather their wits.
I couldn’t help feeling disappointed and it only increased when the more courageous raiders sliced my Hellbats from the air. My minions’ essence flowed free from my grasp and straight into the intruders’ tattoos. This was all part of the game Lilith wanted me to play, but even so, I hated watching others take my essence. Rather than command my Hellbats to retreat, I allowed the raiders to kill them all before they moved off into the corridor.
Nineteen were left; I’d chopped down almost half of them.
It was now time to speed up the process. Who better to contribute than my very own hyperactive champion? At my direction, Puck spoke, his grating voice magnified almost three times by the acoustic curves of the First Floor’s walls.
“You have taken the offerings of Lilith,” he intoned, his voice booming for such a small body. “And her justice shall be swift and visceral.”
The half-orcs barely flinched at the voice. Renkish just laughed and stepped forward, raising his new-found cleaver and a gleaming cutlass in his other hand. I could see the Swiftness sigil glowing, and I took a moment to admire my handiwork. It would make him faster, sure, but my Spring Traps were faster still. Better yet, he wasn’t expecting them.
Intelligent and experienced dungeon divers might have used magic to detect traps, or tossed objects into unexplored rooms to trigger them, but this group was both stupid and uninformed. Ralph and Alaxon seemed content to allow the half-orcs to explore the mysterious terrain of my dungeon, and the raiders seemed too eager for spoils to even consider why the human pair was hanging back.
“The bounties of Lilith are not for the hands of mortals,” the imp continued.
I sent a blinding flash of light from my core, illuminating the whole First Floor and into the corridor before returning to a shimmering glow.
“It’s the dungeon,” the old priest said with a dry chuckle. “It fears for its core.”
Alaxon seemed like an unusual ally at that moment, his words working the half-orcs into a veritable fury.
Ralph must have gotten wind of the plan because he lifted his head and yelled. “Hear me, Infernal Dungeon! I am Ralph Kraus, the Chosen One, and I will purge your evil from this realm. Your demonic power will have no further sway over the land.”
Was this guy for real? He must have laid it on a little too thick because the half-orcs simply laughed at the kid. He was giving me a run for my money when it came to overbearing speech. From the firm set of his mouth and the excellently-crafted longsword in his hands, I couldn’t count him out as a total lunatic. He was one of the few left without a scratch on him.
As for the old man, his time would come. Even though my mind was focused on dealing with the raiders, I hadn’t forgotten about that precious stone hiding in his pouch. I didn’t want to kill him because he could speak far and wide of my dungeon after I let him live, but I still planned on stripping that pouch from his waist. Then I’d give him an ultimatum: attempt to retrieve the pouch and die or leave the dungeon alive.
“First one to the core gets it!” Ralph yelled before he sprang forward. The Swiftness sigil worked as intended, and he surged along the tiles like a pebble dashing across pristine water.
I half expected the speedy half-orc to sail over the floor triggers, but the edge of his boot caught one, and a loud click echoed through the passage. Before his right foot could carry him forward, a huge blade cannoned out of its sheath in the floor. I felt every inch of it as it ripped through his groin, sliced arteries, and shredded intestines. His scream tore through the whole First Floor before the spike retracted, yanking him down and smashing whatever was left of his skeleton into mashed bones.
The others recoiled, but it didn’t take long before they were all scrambling to absorb Renkish’s essence. I figured I’d let them have every last drop; it wouldn’t be long before it was all mine anyway. I planned on letting only the priest survive, and he didn’t seem all that interested in consuming essence anyway. But I really wanted to inspect what was in his pouch, and I figured I could do a bit of multitasking.
“Get that pouch from the old priest,” I willed Puck. “But don’t kill him.”
My winged champion blasted down from the ceiling, a shadow-sphere swirling into existence in his clawed hand. The imp pitched the ball of darkness directly toward Alaxon, and the old man managed to spin as it struck him square in the chest. The priest recoiled and gagged as the foul magic blinded him and slid deep into his lungs.
The half-orcs were unconcerned by the attack on the humans, using the opportunity to surge into my First Floor. They gave Renkish’s corpse a wide berth, every one of them missing the second trigger,
As Puck harassed the priest, Ralph leaped to his defense but my champion was too fast—he slipped under the kid’s sword and moved for Alaxon. The imp curled into a ball and smacked into the old man’s chest like a winged blowing ball. The ancient man stumbled backward, unable to keep his balance, and his foot found the trigger of the last spike trap.
Fuck. I’d told Puck not to kill the guy, but then he’d gone and stepped on the trigger.
The old man planted his staff and tried to vault from the triggered tile but was too slow. The spike rent him wide open, ripped through his neck, shattered his shoulder, and bit through his collarbone until it found his heart and wedged itself in tight against his ribcage. Blood exploded from his mouth, and then, with a whirring clunk, the spike retracted, ripping him off his feet and shattering his frail corpse against the ceiling.
Shit. I’d just lost my dungeon’s best potential advertiser. I couldn’t trust any of the half-orcs to do a decent job, so I’d have to settle with Ralph. He wouldn’t be so bad, though, since he certainly possessed the ability to wax eloquent.
Alaxon collapsed to the floor, a shapeless mess of meat and bone. His pouch fell, and the dungeon core span out of it like a coin. The jewel rotated edge over glistening blue edge before coming to rest in a shadowed corner.
“Alaxon!” Ralph screamed. “No!”
With a relentless fury, he came at Puck.
The imp met the kid at the corridor’s exit and hurled a shadow-sphere, but Ralph’s weapon cut the magic in half. The descending blade didn’t stop there, either. I watched in horror as the sword ripped Puck from skull to foot, tearing him in half in a shower of blood and steaming entrails. His essence, now free of its corporeal form, swirled in the air for a moment. But before Ralph’s sigil could absorb him, the mass of energy whipped toward the nearest surface of my dungeon. With a flood of essence that couldn’t begin to match my flood of relief, I felt the imp whirl into my core. His consciousness was not like the usually hyperactive, cunning, and irritating being I knew; it was inert but safe inside my core.
It seemed there was an advantage to being a dungeon champion; immortality wasn’t a bad perk at all.<
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Ralph snatched the dungeon core from where it had fallen on the floor and raced forward. The other half-orcs had paused at the end of the corridor, too fearful to move into the main chamber. They craned their necks to gaze at the likeness of Lilith. Ralph stood behind them, a few of the half-orcs turning to acknowledge him. They all gazed at him with appreciation, offering a few words of consolation and congratulations for slaying the imp, but Ralph ignored them all. Burning in his eyes was a fire, a desire to destroy my dungeon.
I could use that.
While the raiders were occupied with discussions of the traps and monsters that might lie in wait for them on the journey from the corridor to the dais, I returned to Alaxon’s corpse. By focusing entirely on the single action of absorbing the golden substance floating from his mangled body, every last speck shot toward the dais and siphoned into my jewel.
There was something more to the priest’s Soul Essence—it wasn’t quite as sweet as Gavin’s had been, but was pleasing in another way. It was like a century-old wine, whispering with echoes of magical memories. And it was potent, filling my resource pool far faster than any of the others had. I’d have time to ponder on it later.
“We’ll move slowly,” Ralph said, breaking my thoughts and returning my attention to the raiders. The kid had obviously taken command after Renkish had died, so I guessed killing Puck seemed to have earned him the right to lead. “Every step needs to be careful. Watch the ground, now. If you see any change in the surface color or texture, it’s likely a trap. We’ll draw lots to see who goes first.”
The kid tore at the fabric of his trousers and frayed the edges to produce cotton threads, then the surviving raiders all picked a length. Eventually, the order had been determined and the unluckiest of all the half-orcs ventured forward.
“It’s your time to shine, Bertha,” I said. “Show me what you can do.”
She’d been waiting in the shadows, hidden from anyone peering out of the corridor, but now she stepped into view. Her emerald-green skin bathed in a red glow as she spun her poleaxe in her signature flourish.
“Scalpers! Proceed!” Ralph said calmly.
The raiders fanned out from the corridor, their eyes as much on the tiles in front of them as on the half-troll who lay in wait. When the last half-orc entered the chamber, Ralph sprang forward. He moved with intention as he blurred toward her; he was moving so fast that I doubted a trap would have triggered, even if I’d installed one in this room.
I’d been calling Ralph a kid, but I now realized he was anything but. Whether it was the magical sword he carried or some kind of pent-up rage, I didn’t know.
When the two titans collided, Ralph swept his blade in a powerful arc, looking to cleave Bertha’s head from her shoulders. The half-troll was equally fast, flooded with the sigil of her Savage Halberd, and she blocked the man’s strike with an almost contemptuous ease. She lifted her foot and kicked Ralph in the gut, sending him sliding over the polished obsidian floor.
The other raiders gathered their nerves and retraced the steps of their new leader. They were still wary of potential traps, but they’d seen Ralph sprint forward without consequence, so they soon became confident. In a matter of seconds, they would surround my half-orc champion, and she would become overwhelmed.
I wanted to save Von Dominus for a final, terrifying encounter, but I still had a few Hellbats up my sleeve. I summoned the last of them from the vents in the ceiling, and they swarmed into the blanketed darkness, their shining red eyes agleam with the promise of blood. One monster found a throat, another the inside of an arm. The injured raiders stumbled into their friends, a few deciding that now was the time to run.
“There’s no loot in here,” a terrified half-orc screamed as the bats tore his comrades to shreds.
A pair of orcs joined him as they fled back through the corridor, and I watched with bloodthirsty glee as my hidden, augmented spikes ripped more of them to pieces, yanking and eviscerating their bloody forms against the floor and ceiling. And still, my Hellbats added to the chaos as they swirled, diving for bared skin, bloody wounds, and for anything that still stood on two legs.
Ralph and Bertha continued to exchange blows, neither inflicting so much as a cut on the other. The half-troll didn’t even look like she was exerting herself whereas Ralph’s muscular body glistened with sweat and his chest heaved with exhaustion. In no hurry, Bertha moved forward, and that berserker grin I loved so much spread wide across her face. As he split the air with a skilled swing, Bertha’s halberd whipped around to intercept it. The shaft of her weapon cracked off his shoulder and he backed off, giving himself distance.
They were locked in a battle that didn’t seem like it would end anytime soon, and there were still nine raiders left. The half-orcs were coated in blood—either their own or that of their compatriots—and they looked pissed. These were the survivors of traps, monsters, and champions. They weren’t so easily killed, nor would they flee from the battle. Despite the obvious odds, they would remain until the last half-orc died.
Now was the time for Von Dominus to make an entrance.
Chapter Twenty-One
The dais shifted and the obsidian turned to liquid. I spawned my elf, and he rose from the glistening black rock like a demon from the deepest pits of hell. His eyes gleamed silver on black, and I reached out, my consciousness animating him like a lightning bolt. My elvish eyes combed over the raiders before me, drinking in their fear and confusion. They knew so little about dungeons and weren’t expecting this avatar in all his vampiric glory.
I couldn’t help a smile of contemptuous pleasure from forming on my face. I’d left my tunic behind after Bertha’s reward, so my chest was bare. But it didn’t matter because it increased the intended effect; I looked like the spawn of hell itself. And I was.
“Welcome to Zagorath.” My voice was smooth and sharp, the tone laced with challenge. I spread my arms wide and gestured at the walls of the First Floor while the raiders were frozen by my appearance. Even Ralph had allowed his two-handed sword to drop, and Bertha hadn’t taken the opportunity to execute him—she was enjoying my display of power far too much. “I trust the Scalpers have enjoyed my hospitality?”
I used the same name Ralph had to address the raiders, and they seemed to quiver at my knowledge of their moniker.
“You are the dungeon,” Ralph said, raising his sword and pointing it at me. Realization touched his face, but his eyes were still filled with a cold hatred promising vengeance.
“Guilty as charged,” I said, my smile widening. “Ralph, isn’t it?”
“You’ll pay for the death of Alaxon,” he snarled.
“The old man? Oh, he was delicious,” I said, chuckling. “Tell me, Ralph. What was he to you? A father? A grandfather? Or just some man who told you that you were the Chosen One, that you were destined for greatness instead of shoveling shit on a farm?”
I had no idea who Ralph even was—these were just guesses. I enjoyed shit-talking him, and I knew from decades of gaming what inciting someone to anger could do to their battle skills. My words were purposeful, an attempt to use his obvious grief to turn him rabid and predictable. From the way his face went livid, it seemed I’d hit more than one pressure point. Perfect.
Ralph stepped forward, took his essence-imbued sword in two hands, and glared at me with an impressive amount of boiling hatred. “Your servants will die. I will bring this abomination to the ground and shatter your core. Everything you have built I will tear down around your head.”
That just made me smile wider, and I took a step down the raised platform in further invitation. “Do your worst, Chosen One.”
My use of his title was the breaking point; Ralph lunged forward but Bertha intercepted him, parrying his blade and forcing him to back off and re-evaluate his target. The kid had a lot of heart, but he was smart, too. He couldn’t kill me while my champion stood between us. The other half-orcs, not so much, and they surged toward the dais.
I
swept my eyes over the others, then found a half-orc staring at me in confusion. His tongue hung limply from his mouth, his pupils almost vacant. He was definitely the least intelligent of the bunch, and also had the great fortune of picking up the cleaver with the Swiftness rune from Renkish’s corpse.
Thus, he was the prime candidate for my next move.
I held my victim’s gaze and blasted his consciousness with my own, looking to steal his will away from him. Gavin had managed to ward off my attempt to take his mind, but he was far stronger than any one of these raiders. Ralph would have given him a run for his money, but I didn’t plan on taking his mind—at least not yet.
My victim’s eyes widened, and he snarled while his comrades charged toward me. The half-orc was frozen to the spot, locked in this battle of wills despite his struggle to rid his mind of its interloper. Tilting my head, I probed again, harder this time, but it was like trying to claw my way up a cliff of greased glass. After a second that felt like minutes, a chink in his mental armor gave way, and I clung to it for all I was worth.
The other raiders were a mere twenty-feet from my dais, closing in fast. I wrestled the stupid half-orc’s mind until it collapsed under the sheer force of my will.
Charm Test… Success
Jukha (Scalper) Enthralled!
“Throw yourself upon your comrades!” I commanded the half-orc.
He held his cleaver aloft, its blade glowing with a dark energy. Jukha surged forward, the light trailing behind him like an after-image as he pursued the other raiders.
As the first half-orc leaped up onto the dais, I caught hold of the only weapon left to me—my reward for the raiders, a replica of Gavin’s Savage Mace. The Swiftness sigil shone as I took it in my hand, and the essence flooded from my body into the weapon. I spun to face my enemy as he raised two pig-sticking daggers. His movements were slowed, as though he was fighting while submerged in water. My club hit his face with a devastating crunch, caving in his skull. His head snapped to the side and sprayed bloodied brains over the half-orcs behind him.
