“What? Why does she get to stay?”
Fred looked at Eisa and tried to communicate his apology, but she just looked confused. He tried to use his Mana Communication to talk to her, but either she wasn’t receiving his thoughts, or she could only really hear Deecy for some reason. Maybe it’s some sort of “Shard” ability.
“Because…she’s not quite human anymore. Sorry to break it to you like that, Eisa, but I just now noticed that my dungeon isn’t reacting to you the same way it did before,” he said apologetically.
Fortunately, she just shrugged. “That’s ok. I wasn’t particularly attached to being human, anyway; besides, I kind of like what I am now.”
“Ok, ok, ok – I’ll let you lovebirds have some time alone if you want it, but keep in mind that we’re on a time crunch here!” Regnark laughed as he walked back up the tunnel leading aboveground, his large frame moving surprisingly lithely and almost effortlessly.
Eisa’s face flushed and Fred was momentarily worried she was feeling hot again or sick but based on its presence he suspected it was due to Regnark’s statement about ‘lovebirds having some time alone’. The more he thought he was catching on to the meaning behind all of the human words and interactions, the more he seemed not to understand.
“I knew it! She’s in heat, isn’t she?”
“What? I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Fred sent back to Deecy with his Mana Communication skill. He wasn’t sure if Eisa heard Deecy talking, but it didn’t appear as if she had.
Before the Dire Wolf could respond to Fred, Eisa – as if she was trying to cover something up – quickly asked, “So, what did you need my help with?”
“Uh…oh yes, I said that didn’t I,” Fred said, his mind trying to catch up with things and failing badly. When he took a moment to reorder his thoughts, he told her, “Ok, yes, I’m going to need some additional defenders in here. I don’t think your Crystal Scorpions are going to fit down here, but you can always eliminate them and use their mana to recreate them in this room.
“However, I might need to widen this room out a little more,” Fred said, as he used his Unconverted Mana to widen the room so that it was forty feet wide instead of just the previous twenty. Just like he thought, Eisa’s presence didn’t impede his work in the slightest – she really wasn’t a human anymore.
“Ok, I’ll actually create two more right now and then go up and try to ‘eliminate’ the ones aboveground,” Eisa said, putting forth her aura to create the Crystal Scorpions on either side of the room. Unless he was missing his guess, they were a tad bit smaller than the ones they had ridden earlier, which meant that she had used less of her Earth Mana to make them a lower level – which was perfect. He didn’t even mention that he wanted her to make some of her smaller defenders as well – it was almost as though they were operating within the same mind or something.
“Excellent! Ok, for the next room I want to add…”
* * *
Less than a half-hour later, Fred, Eisa, and Deecy exited the dungeon entrance to find Regnark nervously watching the sun make its final descent under the horizon. “It’s about time – I don’t think we have long before we’re in real danger here.”
“Don’t worry too much, we’ll be inside in just a moment. Eisa just wants to get rid of her Scorpions out here so that she doesn’t have to worry about them being snatched away during the night, and thereby losing the Mana inside of them,” Fred told him reassuringly. He turned to Eisa and said, “Ok, do it just like Deecy said; touch them and think about reabsorbing what they are made of like you would an orb of Earth Mana.”
Eisa did as he said and tiredly placed her hands on one of the legs of the closest Crystal Scorpion, the fatigue from using so much of her Mana in the dungeon plainly affecting her. Fred watched as she closed her eyes and scrunched her face up in concentration for nearly thirty seconds; he thought she might not be able to do it, after all – and then it was like something clicked inside her head as he saw her face relax.
The leg that Eisa was touching seemed to melt and get sucked into her hand at the same time; this was followed by the entire Scorpion dissolving into a big glob of Earth Mana accompanied by an audible *pop*. In less than a second, she had absorbed every drop of Earth Mana that had gone into the construction of the Crystal Scorpion.
“That was harder than I thought,” Eisa said, relief evident in her voice at her success. “There was some sort of mental block that prevented me from initiating the absorption process, but I powered though it; this next one should take no time at all.” With a smile, she walked over to the other Scorpion and easily dissolved and absorbed it until the aura around her shone brightly. He knew that she wasn’t nearly full of Mana after what she had spent downstairs, but she was obviously feeling a lot better than she had been just a few minutes ago.
“Nice job, Eisa; alright, let’s get down and finish preparations before night hits completely,” Fred told them, before leading the way down the entrance into the dungeon. The others followed quickly – especially Regnark – as they didn’t want to be outside in the darkness any longer than necessary.
It was time to prepare for the unknown – and to hope and pray that their defenses were enough to save them.
Chapter 13
Once Fred led them into the first room, he signaled to Deecy to go ahead and throw up her first defense. When everyone was clear, a Fire Wall sprang into being as the Dire Wolf extended her aura and created the floating sheet of flames right in front of the entrance. The defense essentially covered all but the barest amount at the top of the entrance tunnel, but hopefully it would be deterrent enough for whatever was heading their way.
Without knowing exactly what they were up against, it was hard to plan for it – so they ended up putting a little bit of everything in their defenses. This was obvious when he looked at the makeup of the rest of the first room, which still had the Crystal Scorpions on either end of the room. The tunnel leading to the next room was placed directly across from the entrance, but the floor in between was turned into a boiling pool of water, with just barely enough room to walk around near the tunnel outlets. Using the same method as the one in Gatecross, Fred had hollowed out the floor and lined it with stone, infusing Fire Mana into the stone to heat it up – and then using his Water Mana to fill it up.
He found that it was much more cost-effective to use Earth Mana while constructing the stone pool itself instead of just Unconverted Mana. The expense using Earth instead of Unconverted Mana was only about 15% of what it would’ve cost him normally, which also allowed him to add some extra insurance to deter anything flying from bypassing any of the other defenses. Sharp, thin stone blades extended down from the ceiling in all directions, until they were just out of reach of the Crystal Scorpions and dropped even lower over the boiling pit of water. It wasn’t impossible that something flying could maneuver through without getting hurt, but it would have to either be rather small (about half the size of a Large Wasp) or extremely durable to withstand being sliced to bits.
Fred carefully led the way towards the next room, chuckling internally at the astonished look on Regnark’s face as he took in the transformation that had taken place. “You did all of this in just a half hour?” Regnark asked, confusion and amazement warring in his voice.
“We sure did – and there’s even more to see,” Fred replied, beckoning them on. They arrived at the tunnel leading to the next room without trouble; as they walked through, Deecy brought up the rear and placed two of her Ice Spear Barricades – one on top of the other – inside the tunnel, blocking most access to anyone (or anything) trying to get through. It was an expensive defense, but it was worth it to provide the kind of protection they needed.
Walking into the next room, Fred told Regnark to ignore the four Flametripper Spikers he had set up about the entrance of the room and squeezed in between two of them without worry. Just past Fred’s defenders, another large and rather deep pit spanned the width of the roo
m, preventing them from crossing; fortunately, there was a long thick board of wood creating a temporary bridge across the 10-foot-wide pit, which would hold even the significant bulk of Regnark. Overhead, six Entangling Vines descended from the ceiling, there to try to grab anything trying to jump or fly across.
“If anything manages to make it this far, my Spikers near the entrance will do their best to attack and to fling whatever they grab with their flaming leaves into this stone-spike-lined pit, which – with a 30-foot drop – should do quite a bit of damage to it. If they somehow survive that, they will come up against a contingent of Eisa’s Stone Golems, who will do their best to knock whatever climbs out of the pit back into it. Along with them are some smaller Goblin Gnomes, who will also try to do their best to annoy and trip up anything that survives being impaled by spikes as they come up,” Fred said for Regnark’s benefit as they crossed the thick wooden plank.
As soon as they were across, they came up against the Stone Golems, which Eisa temporarily moved away so that they could get through. “Regnark, do you think you can help me move this wooden bridge? I have another use for it.” They turned around and – with great difficulty because of the sheer weight of the wood – they managed to slide it across and up near the exit to the next room.
“Alright, we’re going to use this as a giant door blocking the tunnel, though there will be a small gap towards the top to let air through. Use the handles to drag it in place—” Fred said as he indicated the handles that he had previously formed as part of the thick wooden board using his Nature Mana— “and then when it is butted up against either wall on the outside of the tunnel, we’ll lock it in place with this.” Fred picked up the metal bar he had made using his Conjure Object Adventurer ability and slipped it into place. The strong steel bar slid through the projecting wooden handles of the board and into the tunnel wall, where Fred had hollowed out a deep hole, locking the board where it was and – hopefully – preventing it from being moved.
The last room was relatively empty, as there weren’t any traps or other defenses inside it; this was where they were going to wait and make a last stand if necessary, and having to worry about avoiding their own defenses (Fred could do it easily, as he could “feel” where everything was in his dungeon) wasn’t the best idea for a fight. Nevertheless, there were multiple weapons stacked up against the back wall, including extra bows and bundles of arrows – as well as two massive two-handed weapons, one a warhammer and one a double-edged sword – for Regnark, additional knives and a longsword (just in case) for Fred, and even an extremely large spiked metal ball on a short chain that ended with a long stick with a leather pad covering it.
That last was for Deecy when she was in her Giant Dire Wolf form, who would be able to pick it up by the leather-padded stick end and swing the large spiked metal ball around in circles, demolishing anything it came in contact with. Thinking back at the battle in Gatecross, they both agreed that being able to stay far away from potentially fatal attacks (such as being stuck by a Scorpion’s stinger) was probably a good idea. Producing the oversized morning star weapon along with the others cost Fred quite a bit of Power – almost 2,500, in fact – but it was regenerating quickly; at 25 Power/min, his natural regeneration had already replenished about 10% of that expenditure since he had used it. He was hoping he’d be back to full once whatever was out there attacked, but it was worth it to have everything they needed on hand.
“And this is where we’ll stay; if everything goes well, nothing will reach us this far into the dungeon, but I’ve got supplies here just in case. Additionally, Eisa can create some additional defenders and Deecy can put up some more defenses nearby – but those hopefully won’t be necessary.”
They all just stared at each other for a moment, before Eisa mumbled, “Now what do we do?”
“Now we wait, Eisa – now we wait.”
* * *
They had to wait longer than they expected. Regnark had made it seem that as soon as the sun went down, they’d be immediately attacked; however, more than two hours passed with nothing happening, which allowed everyone to refill most of their Power or Mana that they had consumed with the creation of the dungeon. Fred still had quite a bit of time to go before he converted enough to fill up fully, but most of what he had used inside the dungeon had been replenished. It helped that his Mana Conversion skill – which was now at Expert Mana Conversion: 45% – was still increasing, which sped up the process of turning his Unconverted Mana into the different elemental Mana he had access to.
Fire Mana: 61/139
Water Mana: 61/138
Nature Mana: 60/138
Earth Mana: 60/60
Unconverted Mana: 1450 (30)
Not only that, but having Regnark inside his dungeon was giving him quite a bit of Unconverted Mana; he had used a sizable chunk during the construction of the dungeon, but he had recouped that and quite a bit additional while he was there. In fact, he calculated that he was receiving an additional unit of UM every 15 seconds from the man being in there. Fred wasn’t sure if that amount was typical of what a C-Rated Adventurer would give off or if it was because he had a relatively lower-Rated dungeon, but it was a happy happenstance, nonetheless.
Everyone had been topped off on Power and/or Stamina – in the case of Regnark – for at least half an hour before something showed up on Fred’s Territorial Sight. They had been tensely waiting for something to arrive and he had been tempted to try to teach some abilities to Eisa or Regnark while they waited, but he held off just in case; it wouldn’t be prudent to be out of Power just as the threat they were waiting for showed up.
But finally, after hurrying up to get everything as prepared as they could and then waiting what Fred thought was an unnecessarily long time, he detected something on the edge of his territory to the west – directly from the Deadlands like Regnark had said. He almost missed it at first because it was not there; it was only because he had been looking for anything out of the ordinary that he saw the massive void heading in his dungeon’s direction.
Void was an appropriate word, he thought; what he saw wasn’t made up of any element, necessarily – more like the absence of anything. Not quite like a human, where they weren’t made from Mana; humans at least had body heat and moisture inside their bodies that he could detect with his Fire and Water elements, as well as being able to detect a living being with his Nature Mana. When he thought about it, if there was a human that had any type of Earth product on them – like metals in a weapon or armor – then he could pinpoint them as well.
But not this thing that was heading toward him slowly, as if it couldn’t move quickly if it wanted to. He couldn’t actually see it with his Territorial Sight, but the void it created in his sight was frightening enough that he was kind of glad he couldn’t make out too many details. From what he could tell, the void creature was at least 40 feet tall and half that wide, cylindrical in general shape – and it had hundreds of lengthy, undulating tentacles roaming all over its body in all directions. The tentacles stretched out at least 50 feet from the main body and were each at least a half-foot thick, making the whole mass of writhing appendages quite the sight to behold.
It wasn’t until the creature had crossed fully into his territory that he realized that it wasn’t alone. There weren’t any more of the massive creatures, fortunately, but instead there were small amorphous blobs that were probably only 4 feet tall accompanying it. It was difficult to tell exactly what they looked like, but Fred thought he could see smaller tentacles stretching out from only a couple of places from their smaller “bodies”. They didn’t seem too threatening at the moment, but after a minute of them making their way unerringly in his dungeon’s location, he backed up his view to take in the entire field of grass around his territory and he realized that they might be in trouble.
There were hundreds of the smaller void blobs.
After concentrating on both monsters with as much effort as he could, he was finally rewarded wit
h some information – as little as there was.
Greater Horror (Level ?)
Vitality: ?
Attack: ?
Defense: ?
Horrorlings (Level ?)
Vitality: ?
Attack: ?
Defense: ?
Despite having Master Territorial Sight, the best he could get from these things coming toward them was a name – no levels, no Vitality, and certainly no guess on how powerful they were. Despite the lack of information, he told the others what he had seen and described them, including the basic names that he was able to glean from his limited information.
“I haven’t heard of those smaller things being out here before, but I never made it my mission to learn more about this place other than knowing not to spend the night out here. The giant monster you’re describing could be the one that some of the higher-Rated Syndicate members had killed before, but I don’t really know,” Regnark said, before Deecy interrupted Fred’s thoughts with an urgent Mana Communication.
“Something about what you described triggered something in your mother’s memories. It seems as though she had known exactly what these things are.”
“Well, then – what are they?” Fred communicated back – the others oblivious to their conversation as they discussed what they thought the monsters were.
“Hold on, I’m still processing the memories and trying to make sense of them. They’re still a bit fragmented…and…ok, I think that’s as good as they’re going to get.”
The Dire Wolf started to explain what he had understood from Pyrannelstencia’s memories, and Fred told the others at the same time.
Dungeon World 3: A Dungeon Core Experience Page 11
