by Dakota Krout
“I am coming as well.”
“Me too!”
Dale looked back to see both Minya and Nez trying to stare the other down. “Yes, and abyss no. Nez, you’re with Adam. Minya, go play with the infected.”
“When are you going to let go of your anger toward the dungeon, Dale?” Minya asked scathingly. “The dungeon is just following its nature.”
I stated blandly.
“Minya, if I’m not here you are the only one that can…” he leaned in close and whispered, “talk to the dungeon and get a backup plan. You need to stay.”
She scrutinized his face. “Is that really the reason you don’t want me along?” She crossed her arms.
“No, but it works really well as a reason to make you stay.” Dale answered, eliciting a squawk of rage from the Mage. She turned and stormed off, fuming.
“That was harsh, Dale.” Rose shook her head at Dale’s treatment of the lady. “We could have used her help.”
“Trust me, we don’t want it.” Dale firmly stated. “Let’s go.” They walked into the room and found a few presents.
I had made a matching battle gauntlet for Dale with a slight variation. Instead of a fluid repulsion Rune on it, I had placed an Essence gathering Rune combined with the draining portion of the Demon summoning Rune I had, um, ‘acquired’ a while back. I was unsure if it would work as intended, but I had run Essence through a different version a while back and it didn’t explode. It was supposed to rip the Essence out of whatever Dale hit and store it in the Core hidden in the folds of fabric. It would drain infernal, water, and earth corruption from Dale to power itself, but that shouldn’t be an issue with the taint gathering Cores around his Center.
For Tom, I had made a large chunk of armor. It was basically a Greatshield that strapped onto his body. A person with two arms couldn’t wear this at all, so it was perfect for the one-armed barbarian. With this on, he could act as a mobile battering ram! I also made it enchanted so that he wouldn’t need to use his personal reserves to use it correctly. I chuckled in merriment when his eyes lit up, he had gotten his Warhammer back as well.
He roared in approval. “Today is a glorious day for battle! Perhaps I can fall in combat and join the ranks of the fallen warriors on the fields of heavenly war!”
“Or maybe you could try really hard to survive and keep us alive, too?” Nick scathingly snarled. Dale started to have second thoughts about this man being on the team.
Rose acquired a bow with a force enhancement enchantment, as well as reinforced arrows that wouldn’t shatter when the bow fired them. A few arrows had small jars of explosive fluids, and there was a small collection that had sharpening enchantments for piercing armor.
Adam got a white robe with a fine mesh of Mithral throughout it, well hidden by the cloth. This would stop almost any stabbing weapons but didn’t offer too much protection against direct force or blunt weapons. Dale explained to him in a whisper how amazing the robe was, keeping it a secret from the greedy leader of The Collective.
Hans got nothing.
“This is total… why doesn’t your mysterious benefactor like me?” Hans whined as he simultaneously twirled four knives across his fingers.
“Shall we?” Dale looked around the nervous faces, ignoring Hans. They set out, walking along the tunnel to the next fort, nervously listening to the sounds of fighting, wailing, and scraping through the thin stone walls. Periodic explosions transformed the wailing into snarls and screams of pain or fury, but the weeping would soon return to being a constant background noise.
“This is horrifying.” Rose whispered, her eyes round with fright.
Dale made a motion at her as the ambient noise lessened a bit on the other side of the wall and querying sounds could be heard. Holding a finger to his lips, Dale pantomimed Rose closing her mouth. The noise picked up on the other side, and the group breathed a collective, silent sigh of relief. Treading carefully, they soon found themselves in a room identical to the one they had begun their journey in.
“It should be safe to quietly talk if you really need to.” Dale looked around. No takers.
“Cal? Must you be so… ‘funny’?” Dani thought at me in consternation as she patted Dale on the head.
I cheered him on in a falsetto.
“I hate this place.” Dale muttered softly.
“It grows on you.” Dani patted him on the head again and ruffled his hair. Her voice made the others all stare at her.
Hans asked the question they were all thinking. “You are an intelligent being? I thought you Mobs were mostly animals…”
“I’m smarter than you are, Hans.” Dani walked forward to the exit.
Hans gave a panicked look to Dale. “It knows my name.” He whispered harshly.
Dani threw open the door and charged into battle amidst howls of outrage from the infected. I watched as she plowed into them, a whirling cyclone of blades.
The remaining people charged into battle, doing their best to clear a route without stopping to try and set up a defensible area. They were surrounded, and their best chance was to charge the stairs. With the loss of only four Goblins, they reached the bottom of the upward spiral. A huge mass of bodies greeted them; this was the choke point of the entering abominations.
“How the abyss are we supposed to get through that?” Adam muttered anxiously.
“I’ll take care of it.” Dani informed them with a growl. “Cover me.”
“Cal, all you told me was to start a really hot fire, is that still the plan?” Dani rumbled ominously, cutting me off quite rudely.
Dani grunted and held forward her weapons. Crossing them, she released a gout of fire through a thin film of celestial Essence. Holy fire raged outward, reducing all in its reach to cinders. The fire suddenly roared higher as it reached my prepared area, and a concussive blast resounded, throwing Dani back like a ragdoll. Hans was suddenly in front of her, casually holding out one hand. In front of him was a wall of fire, which curled back and away. The fire was only racing up the stairs. The high oxygen content in the area allowed the blaze to burn exponentially hotter than it ever could have under normal circumstances.
The celestial tinged fire moved quickly but consumed all the available air in the tunnel, burning out too quickly to superheat the stone stairs or wall. Dani bellowed, “Go! Go! Go!” Fresh air was beginning to be pulled up the stair shaft, and they ran forward, propelled by an updraft.
The sentients raced up the stairs, slipping over meaty chunks of semi-seared flesh. I did my best to absorb all of the bodies before they got to them, trying to ease their passage. Scores of low-cultivation infected had died, but a few lived through the initial blast. Most of those were writhing on the floor, burned, blinded, and dying, but a few were standing up, trying to breath the de-oxygenated air. Those few took swipes at the running group but were killed in passing, much to my delight.
I looked at where they were running and swore vigorously.
Dani paused, causing those behind her to bounce off of her armored form with a curse. Her gutteral voice uttered, “How many?”
focus on an area to target. I’m betting that if they noticed you, they would be much more active…>
“Open a passage, Cal.” Dale chimed in, speaking aloud for his party’s benefit. “We don’t have the strength to fight a large group of Mages.” I gave a tiny mental nod and the stairs in front of them slid open, revealing a few startled Impalers and a Glitterflit. Dani pushed past them and sat in the small room. The others joined her, though Tom began having trouble breathing when the walls closed around them.
“I do not like this at all.” Tom whispered, earning a glare from the people hushing him.
A blast of Mana shook the stairway, vaporizing the Impaler and putting cracks in the stonework in all directions. The attacking Mage screamed, then began glowing and charged down the stairs. I thought that this was finally the end of the line for Dale’s group, but the Mage ran right past them, never turning around.
The Mage stood up slowly, growling… and continued down the stairs with a howl.
“We need to hurry!” Dale told the others as they reached the top of the stairs. He ran into Dani’s still form. “That isn’t good.” A near inaudible whimper left his lips.
~Twenty-Eight~
The room, utterly filled with infected, went quiet for a moment, the collective sobbing of the crowd postponed before howls of rage filled the air. Reacting to the sound of prey being found, dozens of infected dropped through the opening in the ceiling. The weakest of them hit the ground and splattered gore across the room, dying upon impact. The remaining ones ran, limped, or crawled at their new targets.
“Screw this.” Rose raised her bow and fired a jar of explosive oil into the crowd. It blasted a hole in the wall of infected, and the battle began. Tom — laughing — charged into the infected, acting as a battering ram. He used his shield as a mobile wall, and Nick scoffed at what he thought was a suicidal charge. When a large group had gathered to attack him, Tom took a sharp step back and swung his Warhammer with a mighty grunt. A wave of death followed the swing. The beings hit directly had large swaths of their bodies blasted into vapor, their bones flying from their still-twitching corpses to act as projectiles.
“I! Have! Missed this!” Tom roared, swinging his hammer ever faster. Nick’s eyes were bulging from their sockets.
“He’s insane.” Nick whispered.
The leader of The Collective looked to the side to see Dale pounding on infected with his — apparently — only cloth covered hands, leaving behind craters in the flesh. An arrow from Rose ripped through everything from her to the wall in a straight line, tearing through bodies and armor like paper. Hans was jauntily strolling along, poking enemies with casual grace and disregard for his own safety.
“They’re all insane!” affirmed Adam. Nick looked his way to see him ignoring several infected that appeared to be stabbing him with daggers. “If you don’t mind, could you start clearing the area?” Nick shook himself, then threw his power hesitantly into the fight. Nez walked up to Adam and killed the infected near him with efficient strokes from his longsword.
Nez looked over Adam, noting his Mithral-lined robe and nodding. “Good, that’ll make it a lot easier to protect you.” He settled in, killing any infected that tried to close with Adam.
The Goblins got into a tight group and made their way to the center of the fallen quartz plate. They pushed the infected back, slowly clearing the savages away from the Rune. As soon as I had enough room to work, I began dissolving the bodies and any fluids left behind, leaving a sparklingly clear space for them to apply an even coat of the reagent. I would have done it myself, but the constant attacks from the infected kept throwing aural interference in the area, and I would hate to have to put down a half-formed version of the needed fluid.
Dani left the quartz and began walking toward the tunnel that connected to the room. Taking a deep breath, she forced Essence along her weapons. They began to glow slowly as she built up the Essence to levels that became visible to the naked eye. Her breathing increased in speed, and she laboriously held her form, forcing the Essence to the utmost compression.
With a tortured scream, she released a torrent of holy fire, and it surged down the tunnel. Released from their mortal coil, the infected in the tunnel simply died. They exploded into ash as the heat reached into the multiple thousands of degrees. “Now, Cal! Drop the security door!” Dani wheezed as she collapsed.
I dropped the five-ton chunk of cursed-earth granite, cutting off the only tunnel into the Boss room. Thank goodness! I had been unable to release the panic doors, cut off by the auras in the area. Infected still jumped down from above, but now there was only one direction for the enemy to appear. For now, at least. In the tunnel, infected were shattering their Centers as they raced into the molten tunnel and had their limbs melt off. Explosion after explosion rocked the corridor, and the rock began to crack.
Adam stepped onto the quartz plate and pulled the huge jar of reagent from his storage bag. With steady hands, he used the built-in nozzle to begin pouring the viscous fluid along the lines of the Inscription. He went at a measured pace, not only because he didn’t want to make a mistake, but also due to the fact that the fluid left the container oh so very slowly. He bent down to fill a deep portion of the Rune, and Dale used him as a springboard to punch a sprinting infected in the face.
“Done!” Adam shouted, several minutes later. A ragged cheer reached his ears while he noticed that the Rune wasn’t doing anything. “The activation sequence! Where is it?!”
A moment of frantic searching turned up the missing chunk of quartz, and Adam began filling its lines with the remaining fluid. They were moving toward the Rune to place the piece… when a familiar body landed next to the Rune, falling from above. Dozens more fell to the ground from on high.
The area seemed to go still, just for a moment. Dale saw the face contorted by rage and shuddered. The words that left his lips caused the fight to return to its previous intensity. “Father Richard… no…”
~Cal~
I was looking in on my other pet, er, minion, uhh… Minya. She seemed to be doing well.
“Fear death not!” She intoned above the raging battle. “Our work empowers our dungeon, and with each death, we will increase our reward in the afterlife!” This was met with sideways glances and muttering, “With each enemy slain, we increase our rewards in this life!” That was the way to get the people motivated, it seemed. A constant flow of valuables. Well, if that was the case…
When a group of infected was cleared enough for me to create things, I rained down an explosion of shining gold coins. The defenders were quiet for a moment, and then all abyss broke out. They redoubled their efforts, and with every explosion of the elements, I followed it with a hail of coin. Chandra whooped at the suddenly vigorous group and spread her hands out over the crowd of flailing attackers. “Hold onto something!” She screamed in delight.
Thousands of seeds left her outstretched palms, seemingly appearing from nowhere. Thick foliage and intertwined vines grew in front of their fort and th
e defenses holding the group of Nobles. I was disappointed at first, as she had been preparing to attack for almost half an hour! The infected were trying to attack the barrier but having little effect on the dense vegetation. Then the attack portion of her incantation went off! Thousands of thorny vines sprouted from the seeds in the air, wrapping around anything moving. The infected in the area were suddenly all pinned to something. The floor, each other, themselves. They struggled to escape for a moment, then collectively relaxed, shattering their Centers.
The room shuddered, and the explosion was so loud that any non-Mage was instantly deafened. Chandra laughed as the elemental storm broke against her barrier of flora, then sat down to enjoy the fireworks. I worked overtime to collect all of the Essence that was suddenly in the air and within my grasp. The corruption gathering gemstones threaded throughout my body began sucking at the air, desperately trying to bring the dungeon system back to homeostasis.
The corruption gathered into a thick sludge that, surprisingly, started moving. A slime Mob? No. Nope, I want no part in that. Not again. Again? What? I shuddered at the memory of a night a while back, forgotten for some reason. I would think about that later. If I remembered. Um. Remembered what? Huh. That was strange…
A Rune that I had never noticed before shimmered into view and… whatever was on the floor vanished with a plop and bubble as it jiggled and wiggled. Bizarre.
Oh! Right! A huge amount of creatures had just died! I looked at the fort, where all the defenders were waiting with baited breath and staring at the now open space. I made a small mental shrug, then created a sheet of gold coins across the entire room! The people cheered with happiness and greed as the coins rattled and clinked. The hailstorm of ringing metal almost drowned them out.
Then I noticed that there was a new group entering the room. Even before the cheering died down, one of the infected Mages raised a hand and squeezed. The stone wall the defenders were attacking from shattered, spilling people into the open area. On the plus side, they had access to a sea of shimmering gold. Conversely… well, there was nothing between them and the Mages.
