by Dakota Krout
Dale glanced at the furious Dwarf, “You named the wall? You named it ‘Cliff’? Won’t that be confusing with all these cliffs around?”
“No! We didn’t want the wall to feel out of place, so we’re letting it think that it is a natural rock formation!”
“What are you…? I don’t…” Dale paused, Dwarven logic didn’t matter right now. Only one thing did. “Kill that bastard!”
Arrows and rocks fell on the man who was pounding on the wall, but though his clothes were destroyed, he took no damage.
“Damn Mages and their near-physical invulnerability.” Hans grumbled. Amber stepped forward, opening her mouth and releasing an eye-drawing stream of multi-hued light. It seemed to flow into the infected man, and he dropped, blood pouring from his ruined ears. “What did you do to him?”
Amber shook her head, “I spoke to his brain, and convinced it that it was dead. His physical state soon followed his mental one.”
Dale shuddered, trying not to be disturbed. Mana was terrifying. He looked into the darkness, seeing lights begin to sprout amongst the people affected by this madness of the dungeon. “More Mages!”
“That Mana signature! That’s-“ The Spotter who was speaking gasped. “Those are three of the Mages from Spotterton!” He finished his statement as shimmering colors flew from the Mages, impacting the wall. The strike knocked dozens of people off their feet, and some fell off the wall entirely. Those who fell on the defended side of the wall were injured, but those who fell toward the infected were torn apart amidst howls of fury. Chunks of stone fell from the shaking wall, killing a few Beasts at the base, but the wall held firm.
Midnight was swiftly approaching when lesser cultivators appeared, those in the C-ranks and below. They moved faster than their counterparts and were able to begin scaling the wall using personal Essences. There were easily a thousand C-ranked or below Cultivators at the base of the wall, interspersed with a few Mages. They were scaling the wall like spiders when Frank suddenly took action.
He moved to the edge of the wall, Mana gathering around him like a thundercloud, dense and heavy. Dale had seen this before, and tried to intercept him. “No, Frank! Remember what happened with Father Richard!”
Frank either didn’t hear him or didn’t care. His Mana poured out of him, shaking the air with its power. “STOP!” He roared into the night.
Dale spun around, now facing toward the city center and his team. He reached deep inside himself and held a pattern with his mind. Forcing his Essence into the pattern, it burst past his aura, successfully activating for the first time. He took a step forward, moving with a speed he had never managed before as the earth itself tossed him away. He threw his arms out, catching his team in a half-collision, half bear-hug as he jumped into the empty air behind the wall. They were moving at such high speeds that even with the added mass and air resistance, they were a dozen feet past the edge. Then what Dale had feared… occurred.
The rolling Mana from Frank washed over the hoard, but the ones on or near the wall were the most affected. Their movements slowed, finally coming to a total stop as all of the kinetic energy was stripped from them. For a moment, they struggled. Then realizing they could not move or escape, the most affected group shattered their Centers.
The wall was blasted to rubble from the pressure wave as a thousand lower ranked and three Mage-ranked Centers shattered simultaneously. The wall bearing the brunt of the outpouring of energy was the only thing that saved Dale’s group, though the blast pushed them further away from their looming landing point. The group was now thirty feet away and falling quickly.
They were pelted with searing hot chunks of stone and thrown further from their impact site when a secondary explosion happened, by happenstance changing their landing point to a thick snow drift. Dale stood as quickly as he could, turning to look at the shimmering air behind them. The massive quantity of raw power was having a horrible effect on the environment, and clouds were already gathering and turning sickly colors from corrupted Essence lying thick upon the world.
Bodies and body parts were raining down around the group. Some were moaning, and some sprang to their feet immediately. Dale looked at the survivors closely. It seemed that all of the Mages had survived, but beyond his group there were no other people below the C-ranks among the survivors from the wall. That meant, at a minimum, there were already five-hundred and fifty casualties. Not all of the C-ranked people had survived, so the death toll was actually higher than Dale could estimate. From one. Simple. Mistake.
“Dale.” Brianna limped toward him, “We need cover. My people are going to go and protect the Silverwood tree. Your defenses are gone, and your hopes of keeping the remaining things out of the dungeon are crushed. I advise you to seek shelter within the dungeon, but it is your choice. Good luck.” The Dark Elves gathered together, moving toward the entrance at a limping run.
Dale looked over at the wall of deadly Essence and Mana. The ground was poisoned; the air was blazing with fire and poisonous gasses. He could hear the hoard weeping on the other side, only held back by the deadly barrier. He tried to focus his addled mind, looking around. Minya appeared in front of him and grabbed his chin, forcing him to look at her. “Gather any survivors. We need to get to the third floor in the dungeon! It is the only defensible location remaining.”
~Twenty-Four~
“Cal-Cal-Cal!” Dani shot down her personal tunnel, “Shut this behind me, now!” I filled the wall with stone behind her, all the way to the top. Suddenly, I was fighting to keep the stone solid as it cracked and shattered along the weakened path.
“Something horrible. There is an army of infected, and somehow millions of them just exploded! They died and released all of their Essence and corruption in a single burst!” Dani was sobbing, terrified at her close brush with death.
She let out a weak chuckle. “Oh, Cal. Not everything is about you! Also, you should know by now that I exaggerate.”
“No, I’m pretty sure those are the ones that have an unhealthy obsession with the Silverwood tree. I’ll bet that they are coming to stand guard around us. Let them in!” Dani demanded, following this statement by flying out to meet them, something she had never done before.
“Excuse me, Elves?” Dani moved to the side as a knife flashed through where she had been. “Well, that’s rude.”
“Hold!” Brianna directed, stopping the next attack. She looked at Dani, eyes wider than usual. “Are you a… Dungeon Wisp? You are supposed to be just a legend.” Her voice was almost accusatory.
Dani laughed, the sound like tiny bells mixed with deadly threats. “I’m real enough to be here, aren’t I? Why are you racing in?”
“The Silverwood tree…” Brianna shook herself. “We need to protect the tree.”
Dani started drifting away, “Works for me, but you don’t want to go that way. Traps.”
e.
“I’ll help you. If this hoard wipes out the rest of you, there won’t be anyone to lure in anymore. My own strength will wane. I’ll make you a deal.” Dani stopped, hovering near a trap. “I can stop the Mobs from attacking the adventurers and I will even help them.”
She paused, staring at them. “There is a catch. You will all need to swear an oath to me that you won’t reveal any secrets you learn while you are here, at least those that pertain to the dungeon. Personal achievements, brag about whatever you want. You are also in damaged armor, and a few of you have broken weapons. I can replace those for now, but a part of your oath will be returning them to me before you leave here.”
Brianna didn’t answer right away. When she did, it was considering. “I want something else as well. The Silverwood tree is doing very well here, and I want to know what the difference is between your and our attempts to grow one. Also, I want direct access to the tree via a portal if it is within your power. Do so and I will swear not to take advantage of your trust, as will my people. We will follow the spirit of your words, not just the letter.”
“Cal?” Dani spoke into the air.
“Cal…”
“Good.” Dani paused, “Plus, think of all the people who are going to be dying in here even with your help, and all the infected on their way that you get to eat!” She always knew how to make me see the silver lining in a situation.
Dani turned her attention back to the Elves. “I agree to these terms. If you will swear the oath, I swear I will uphold my portion of the deal.”
Brianna and the others swore the oath, binding themselves to their word of their own free will. Dani nodded, telling them to place all of their armor and weapons on the ground. They stepped away and watched nervously as the scrap was absorbed. Dani started moving again, and they turned a corner to come face-to-stinger with two Assimilators, who were crackling with unreleased lightning. The Elves tried to scream, but before they could utter a sound I allowed the Essence stored in the Assimilators to fade away.
“What was that, Cal?” Dani angrily berated me.
“While we walk, and since we will never be able to tell anyone else, could you satisfy my curiosity?” Brianna prodded as they got over their shock. Not literal shock, I didn’t use lightning on them. The mental kind of shock. Anyway.
“I suppose… you can certainly ask?”
Brianna launched into full question mode, asking about the dungeon, the tree, and Dani. Dani answered as well as she could, and I filled in any gaps in her knowledge. Possibly the most horrified look I had ever seen on an Elf came when Dani explained that I was alive and intelligent. Well, wait. That isn’t accurate. The most horrified look was when that one crazy Elf let herself be killed by my Bashers. Heh.
“All this time, even the most knowledgeable of us thought that the dungeons of the world were simply places where Essence would accumulate intensely, and this was what spawned the monsters that inhabited them.” Brianna shook her head sadly. “People have always had wild theories… I guess not as wild as I had originally thought. Dungeon Wisps were supposed to be the guiding factor according to legends.”
“Not now, Cal. There are things to do right now, I can’t let you go all introspective.”
They made it to the center of the floor, bypassing a snoring Snowball. They walked up to the tree, gasping in shock at the items waiting for them. There was a full set of Mithril armor waiting for each of them, fully Inscribed. To ensure that they would be able to fight as well as possible, the Inscriptions were powered by fully-charged Cores. Reverently, the Elves put on the armor. There were no gaps in this protective gear after it was equipped; even their faces were covered by a fine mesh of woven Mithril!
“This, on top of our bodies’ normal durability… we should be unstoppable.” One of the Elves seemed about to break into song.
Dani spoke up, souring his mood a bit. “Don’t get too attached. The gear comes back to us when this is all over.”
~Dale~
Hans stepped through the portal, the last of the wounded with him. “Dale, we have good timing. The barrier is failing, and a Mana storm is coming. A snowflake the size of the King’s palace just drifted past. It caught on the Pleasure House and cut it in half.” Hans shuddered, “At least it was drifting and not plummeting. I can’t imagine how much that weighed.”
“I’m assuming a Mana storm creates odd weather phenomenon?” Dale helped his teammate carry the wounded man into an empty fortification.
Hans agreed with a few reservations. “More than that, it creates… things. All of that Mana could just go up and up, then suddenly turn into a new moon! Who knows what could happen? Even if we survive the night, we may not survive the weather.”
“Is this why shattering your Center is so illegal?” Dale wondered, hoping a solution could be found.
“Pretty much.”
“The fourth…? How?” Dale demanded impatiently as he helped the wounded into a fort.
“I heard that. Who has ever heard of Goblins tunneling?”
Dale growled, then started giving orders. They were far too close to the fourth floor exit. He finished explaining to one group, then moved to the next half-hex fort. He yelled for them to open the gate, but they just glared at him and told him to leave. It took Dale a moment to realize why he recognized the people on the wall. He snapped his fingers, “You are the Nobles that came a while back! Why are you still here?”
“Oh, I don’t know.” One of them spat at him. “Maybe because someone basically called everyone cowards and told them if they left they couldn’t come back? The same person who killed hundreds of cultivators with that order? Sound familiar?”
Dale’s gut twisted. He had been thinking along those same lines, but hearing someone else say it was much worse. He took a deep breath, reminding himself of the phrase he had been raised on. “Death is everywhere in the Phantom Mountains. By being here, everyone accepted those risks. They could have left, but their greed held them here. I accept no blame for wanting to protect my home!”
“Shut up, you common-born filth! You’re just trying to get us all killed!”
Dale’s vision flashed red, “If I wanted to kill you, I could order you to leave my land right now!” He bellowed at the man on the wall, who paled at the revelation. “Now follow my orders and those of the council, or I will make you leave! Failing to assist in the defense of the dungeon kills us all, and doing it knowingly is punisha
ble by death. Starting now!”
There was a pause as the people behind the wall went silent. Dale wasn’t having it, “Move your blue-blooded asses!” There wasn’t exactly a scramble for the door, but a slow shuffle of people made their way toward the midpoint of the floor. Dale had to take several deep breaths to calm himself. The Prince and Princess had been called back to their Kingdoms after the Nobles had been settled and the infection announced, and Dale missed them. He hadn’t had to bother with the stubborn branch family members a single time after punishing the unruly Barons and sending them away. Their respective monarchs had kept their promise, forcing the Nobles to stay in line and under control.
Dale waited a minute after the last people had left. Just long enough to see a contingent of exceedingly well armed and armored Goblins walk into the fort. “Good,” he thought. The rear would be defended. “Cal, we need a bit more protection. Eight foot walls aren't going to keep the infected out.”
“I need these walls to connect to the ceiling. Can you make it happen?” Dale begged the Essence-hungry dungeon, using his mind to speak so he could avoid odd glances from the stragglers.
