Deecy squeezed her way through the hole in the wall next and fortunately landed on the ground on all fours, arriving near them without harm. Just after she landed, they heard a loud crack followed by a crash from their room; almost faster than he could believe, Fred saw the form of one of those that broke in at the missing portion of the wall.
“Deecy, move!” Fred Communicated to the Dire Wolf and she sprang forward, following the others as they ran through the town. Looking back at the Inn, he saw that all 6 of those that had broken into their room were standing and watching them run – and he could tell they were contemplating following them. With a quick thought and fumbling with his Territorial Sight while he kept running, Fred used his Unconverted Mana again to make a large, relatively open-top “room” in the ground directly beneath the expanded window he had made. He left a very thin layer of hardened dirt on top that threatened to collapse even as it was formed – but it stayed in place just long enough for it to work the way he intended.
Three of the intruders jumped out from the Inn and landed perfectly on top of his room, the “roof” of which collapsed easily under their weight. They fell another 40 feet down the improvised pit and landed heavily, but largely unhurt at the bottom; his intention wasn’t to kill them – an impulse that he almost gave into, however – but to slow them down enough for Fred and his friends to escape. Without turning around, he kept his concentration on placing his feet one in front of another as he “watched” the three remaining intruders still in the Inn run back inside and make their way normally outside – to follow his escaping group, he was sure.
“Where do we go?” Eisa called out after they passed the last of the houses in the town, slowing down and dropping her Earth Elemental form in favor of being able to move a little more swiftly in her own human body. Without prompting, she immediately used her Earth aura to form two Crystal Scorpions, which would help immensely to speed their escape. By the time they climbed on, unfortunately, Fred could already see that there was a crowd chasing after them. From the snippets of conversation that he overheard using his Territorial Sight, they were saying something about Fred and his friends stealing something from all of the Inn’s other Inn’s and killing a few innocent Adventurers in the process – but that didn’t make sense.
“Why are they saying we stole things and killed some people? My impromptu pit didn’t harm them at all,” Fred asked, ignoring Eisa’s question for the moment – because he had no idea where they should go.
Regnark apparently understood faster than Fred could work through it. “They probably used their botched attempt to rob us as a way to steal from everyone else and someone probably protested a little too much – and now they can blame it all on us since we’re running away.”
“Then can’t we just go back and explain what happened?” Fred wondered aloud as he watched the crowd of around 50 or 60 now fan throughout the town, with the majority heading in the direction he and his friends had just went.
“Don’t you remember what I said about this place being essentially lawless? They’ll kill us before we even—never mind, we don’t have time for this. If we’re going to head for Allroads, we’ve got to head to the southwest, but we’re nearest to the eastern border of the town right now. We can exit there and swing around, making our way there through the Deadlands.”
With the decision made, they took off on their Scorpions faster than their pursuers could keep up. They wouldn’t be able to maneuver through the Deadlands very well with them since they were so large, unfortunately, but they definitely helped them race across the green fields on their way out. Fred wasn’t looking forward to fighting their way through constant hordes of undead again, but with his homicidal feelings waning but not completely gone yet, he thought it might be a good way to let off some of his unusual rage.
Why am I just now feeling these things? Is it my Dungeon Core nature finally making itself known? Is this what they feel like towards humans, all the time? Logically, he knew that couldn’t be true, otherwise his parents probably wouldn’t have shown such love toward him; in fact, they probably would’ve just killed him when he was a baby if they felt like that towards humans. So, what is it?
Unfortunately, he didn’t have an answer and they were too busy leaving the town’s land as soon as they could. Less than a minute later, he reached the end of his own territory and it collapsed as he left where he had established it earlier; he could’ve set up another one on their way out, but he didn’t see the point. His last look at the ones chasing after them was of them just leaving town, too far away to be a big threat. He vaguely wondered if they would continue chasing after them into the Deadlands; he didn’t think it was likely, because it was technically still dark out and it was likely even darker inside the dead forest. Even though there weren’t any living leaves on the trees, they were so numerous and placed close together that it blocked out a bit of the sun during the day – the moonlight wouldn’t stand much of a chance.
Finally, they reached the edge of the living lands and as they passed through the invisible barrier separating the two distinct areas, he realized that he didn’t even know the name of the place they were leaving, but he guessed it didn’t really matter; he wasn’t planning on visiting there anytime soon.
They were quickly assaulted by what could’ve been the exact same duo of Decaying Zombies that had chased Fred into the townlands in the first place, except for the fact that it was nearly 600 feet to the south where they had entered. Regardless, the Crystal Scorpions used their large claws to essentially chop them in half within seconds, and Fred wished they could take the giant bugs with them – but there was no room in between the trees for them to easily move.
Guess it’s back to walking – and fighting through seemingly endless waves of undead, he thought, the rage that had built in him completely draining away at the prospect. Just as Eisa reabsorbed the Mana from her Scorpions, they were attacked by a mummified-looking Shrunken Monkey that appeared to materialize in the branch of one of the nearby trees. Oh well, at least we got a little bit of sleep.
Chapter 23
Eisa had never really gotten used to being near and controlling the undead while she was a Necromancer, but it hadn’t been all that bad. She thought that she might have had some sort of immunity to the smell of the undead while she was her former class, because she couldn’t remember them ever being this wretchedly stinky.
After they had left the living lands where the town full of thieves and murderers had tried to murder them and steal their things, they entered the Deadlands again and were immediately attacked. Unfortunately, her Crystal Scorpions couldn’t fit through the trees without taking the time to destroy them all in the process, which she thought it prudent to avoid because it would only clearly mark their path through the dead forest. She didn’t know if the townspeople and Adventurers would continue to follow them into the Deadlands at night, but she didn’t want to make it easier to track them down if they did.
Even though her largest, most powerful ‘defenders’ she could create couldn’t fit through the trees, that didn’t mean she was out of options. Converting the Mana from the two Level 1 Scorpions into six strong Level 8 Stone Golems, they now had a sort of escort that could lead the way through; they were quite durable against the undead and were easily repaired after most fights with just the small amount of ambient Mana she absorbed along the way from the dirt underneath her feet – at least most times.
She was beginning to be able to detect where better concentrations of Earth Mana were; for instance, the forest where the Plant – Nature…it was hard to remember the different name the dungeons used sometimes – dungeons were was relatively rich in Earth Mana because it melded fairly well with the Nature aspect of the forest. Likewise, the Plains of Grass had a decent amount of Earth Mana beneath all that grass, and she could access it even better while they were inside of Fred’s dungeon.
The Deadlands…not so much. There was a trickle of ambient Mana coming into her wh
ile walking through the dead forest, which helped – but it was only about 10% of what she had absorbed from the Nature forest and even the town’s lands they had just left. Fortunately, they had spent enough time there last night for her to recharge a bit of her Mana, and Fred had also been feeding her some as well.
Which was still plain strange to her how all this Mana stuff worked, as well as how Fred was able to do so much when he could establish a “territory” but wasn’t able to do much at all with his Mana when he couldn’t. And the way he could “convert” some of the Mana he had access to into different elements was almost miraculous and didn’t seem limited by the nearby ambient availability. Of course, she had also learned that he couldn’t absorb any ambient Mana, so that was a bit of a drawback.
Fred had cast his Magelight spell once they were deep enough into the Deadlands because the descending moon and subsequent moonlight wasn’t penetrating the forest of dead trees very well; it bobbed over their heads and shone a bright light that illuminated the surrounding forest for nearly 50 feet – but also had the unfortunate side effect of casting shadows everywhere. However, with her Stone Golems out front and the rest of them playing backup to their front line, they made quite short work of anything that got in their way.
They went east back towards the Plains of Grass for about a mile, before they turned directly southwest – which would avoid running into any other towns along the way to their destination; Regnark had mentioned that the city of Allroads was located there, but he didn’t have much more information about it. He had never been there and only heard of its existence and general location, but that was about the extent of his knowledge. Fred hadn’t seemed particularly interested in what it was either; all he seemed to care about was that they now had a general direction in which to search.
If she was being honest with herself, she was more than a bit worried about him. Back in that town…she realized she didn’t even know the name of it…there were a couple of times that Fred seemed to be on the verge of a murderous rampage; thankfully, he seemed to calm down and stopped from goodness only knows what he was planning on doing. But the whole thing was highly unlike him and she wondered what was going on; her traitorous mind couldn’t help but think it was his half-Dungeon Core heritage finally rearing its ugly head.
It was unfair to think that way, she knew; he couldn’t help how he was born, but just based on the actions of the Cores that had taken to hunting them down, she pictured them all as murderous homicidal maniacs even worse than the people running these towns in the Deadlands. To think that he was in any way associated with them was…unpleasant.
Regardless, he seemed fine and as normal as he could be – which for him was still sometimes weird – as they turned southwest to fight even more undead along their way to this Allroads place. When she thought about it, she couldn’t blame him for wanting to kill them all after she had heard the same information about how the town had stolen all of their money and then kicked them out – she had felt the same thing, in fact. The difference, however, was that he seemed right on the verge of actually doing it, while she had just thought about it and felt intense anger towards them – but she had no intention of following up on those feelings.
Therefore, the only thing Eisa thought she could do was to be there to keep an eye on him in case he lost it; she was reasonably confident he wouldn’t hurt any of their current group on purpose (and hopefully not unintentionally), but she didn’t think the same could be said for any other groups of humans or Adventurers they came across. She didn’t know what was wrong with him and she hoped it was just temporary.
Shortly after they had turned towards the southwest, something…familiar…tickled the back of her mind. She wasn’t sure what it was at first and kept looking behind them as if there was something trying to sneak up on them; every time that she checked, however, she didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. It wasn’t for another ten minutes that she realized why it felt somewhat familiar – she was feeling Earth Mana nearby. As Eisa had noticed before, being more attuned to the Mana that provided her with life made it nearly second nature to reach out and feel the ambient Mana around her – and allowed her to extend those senses farther and farther out. She couldn’t absorb or manipulate it in any way, but she could at least pinpoint where it was.
Excited that there might be a cache of Earth Mana around that she could tap into and absorb, she closed her eyes while her Stone Golems were fighting off another small group of Shriveled Deer, the Deer’s firm shriveled skin underneath their patchy hair making them essentially surrounded in natural armor. They weren’t very dangerous, fortunately, so they were easily dispatched – but they were annoyingly numerous in the dead forest.
She easily pinpointed the Earth Mana she was feeling a short way to the east, which seemed obvious because it was almost directly behind them; hence, it was the reason she felt like they were being followed. The cache of Earth Mana was actually close by and she excitedly got Fred’s attention. “Fred, I think there might be a source of Earth Mana just to the east; if I can get there to absorb it, I can completely fill up and possibly even extend my maximum—”
She cut herself off as she surveyed the feeling of Mana again – but this time it was slightly closer than it had been before, and Eisa hadn’t moved. Confusion was quickly replaced with horror as a few conclusions passed through her head: The Earth Mana was now closer in relation to them, which meant it was moving, and that in turn meant that the source of the Mana that she was sensing was mobile – and heading straight for them.
“Fred, I think we have a problem.”
* * *
“You did what?” Eisa heard Regnark yell, as they crashed through another group of undead trying to block their way, leaving it behind in their rush to put as much distance between them and what she now knew was likely a whole bunch of monsters from the Earth dungeons apparently still chasing them.
“Look, I said I’m sorry. I kind of lost it back in that town and I established a territory in response to them trying to break into our room. I wasn’t thinking straight at the time and I inadvertently just sent up a signal to anyone looking for us in here. Our only chance is to hide,” Fred shot back, flinging out two more Lightscythes toward an undead who had managed to squeeze through the line of her Stone Golems.
“Well then, establish your ‘territory’ again and dig us another dungeon like you did out on the Plains of Grass,” Regnark shouted back, using his massive double-handed sword on the hordes of undead trying to swarm them. They had taken off running as soon as Eisa had given them her warning; it didn’t work so well, as they hadn’t stopped to finish off the undead they encountered, so now they were forced to stop and take care of those that were chasing them before they got overwhelmed when there were too many of them to take care of all at once.
Even though they weren’t all that powerful or dangerous singly or even as a group of 10 or less (for the most part), they were already approaching nearly 40 assorted undead chasing after them. The undead weren’t the type to give up either; if they were held up somewhere along the way, they might get swarmed by even more if they continued without taking care of the issue now. Fortunately, Deecy had been saving her precious Mana for a time like this and practically roasted the huge group of decaying and withered creatures with two quick Fire Walls.
“I can’t do that while there are already territories here; I could only do it on the Plains and in town because no other Cores had established any there. The closest empty spot I can sense is either the place we just left – and I advise against going back there for obvious reasons – and what is likely another town to the south approximately twelve miles away. Or, of course, there’s always the Plains – but even if we were able to get there fast enough to avoid these Earth defenders chasing after us, it’ll likely still be dark enough for those Horror things to still be present. We’re probably lucky they are there, actually, because it’s very likely that those same void creatures are slowing down thi
s new army from the Earth Cores,” Fred said as the last of the current large group of undead was finished off by Eisa’s Stone Golems – which were looking a little beat-up by that time.
She spread her aura out over them before they started to move again and spent some of her precious Mana to repair them. She looked at her current Mana and saw that she was getting a little low from all the repairs, and she was getting very little ambient Mana from the environment.
Earth Mana: 118/710
She was by no means in danger of running out of Mana at the moment, but she couldn’t even afford to create a Crystal Scorpion anymore. She hadn’t received any Earth Mana from Fred lately so she knew she could count on a little bit at least from that quarter, but she didn’t have nearly as much as she wanted if they ended up trying to fight the wave of monsters she could feel slowly descending on them.
“Well, then – what’s your plan, Fred?” Regnark asked, speaking normally now that the current threat of undead had been dealt with.
Fred looked around vaguely for a moment before grunting like what he was about to say was going to be unpleasant. “I don’t need to build my own dungeon – there are plenty around here already.”
Is he suggesting what I think he is? “You don’t mean…”
“Yep – we’re going to delve into a Dark dungeon.”
Chapter 23
Despite everyone’s monumental reservations (including Deecy), Fred led them unerringly toward the closest dungeon he could find with his Territorial Sight, which was fortunately not too far away. It was less than half a mile to the south, in fact, and their journey there was quicker than he had expected. While they were still assaulted by numerous undead along the way, it was noticeably much less than it had been just a couple of minutes ago.
Dungeon World 3: A Dungeon Core Experience Page 19
