by Ryan DeBruyn
Azrael made a perusal of the battlefield, looking for any area he could help. The stun had affected everyone in the room. The Enbarr and its opponents had resumed their fighting, but now the three humanoids were being mobbed by all of the fodder. Ants, beetles, wolves, and wasps began dying. Still, they distracted the three enough for the Enbarr to score numerous hits on them.
Azrael turned back to Musth and released the Stalagmite spell. Jophi must have cast one as well, because two massive spikes grew up from the ground and fought against the thick skin of Musth’s underside. They lifted the elephant and even drew a small amount of blood before the tips broke off from the strain. Next, Azrael repositioned and called, “Release five!”
His Soul Strikes screeched as they attempted to dissect Musth. Dead skin patches fell away, but his skill wasn’t powerful enough to breach the inherent Ether of the Pit boss. Ogma added his fist to the blades, and together they shot Musth into the wall, causing it to crack. The crack extended into the ceiling and floor. Azrael watched on in horror. Musth slapped its trunk on the ground, then rose onto hind legs, hitting its head and causing the cracks to spread further. Was the ceiling going to bury them all?
Musth’s front two legs landed back on the ground, and Azrael Analyzed it.
Musth
Epic-Raging Bull Mammoth
Level 71
Health Points: 12880/26000
Skills: Opponent’s level is too high.
It was already at half health. They had a chance. As he thought that, the elephant’s front feet landed, and Azrael saw a green glow surround it. Then its health rose to seventy-five percent. The green light morphed to brown, and armored plates grew all over its body. Azrael cursed himself for his naivety. Of course it wouldn’t be that easy.
The group continued to bombard Musth with everything they had, and Azrael felt rather useless. The Yewman was still collecting itself into shape, and Azrael checked its health to discover it was below twenty-five percent. He checked in on the Enbarr fight to see it glowing blue. This wasn’t going well on any front. While there was still fodder launching into battle, Azrael didn’t hold out hope for any of the four powerful opponents to fall.
He ran over to a hole in the ground and shouted, “We need you up here now.” Nothing happened. Cursing, Azrael yelled to Jophi while pointing at the hole, “Hit one of these with a Fireball!”
Jophi didn’t question him and launched a Fireball to splash over and into one of the spaces. Worker and Drone Bees launched out from the holes. Azrael hoped that the Queen was mixed in amongst the swarm. A glowing light confirmed the Queen’s presence as it began charging its spell attack. The blast hit Musth on one of its armor plates and an explosion displaced the air with a resonating whoosh. The elephant reeled back into the wall, cracking it further, causing a good quarter of the ceiling and floor to become more unstable.
The attack phase of the Worker Bees followed, and they attempted to pick up Oberan, Gyr, and Yonel. The Enbarr got a break as its opponents fought off the aerial attacks. The Workers died by the hundreds before the Drones shot forward, attempting to skewer the three and Musth. They pin-cushioned Musth, whose armor did very little against their sharp stingers. Azrael watched as the thoraxes of the Drones pumped methodically.
Musth stumbled, and Azrael saw it was back under fifty percent. It glowed red again, and all the bees shriveled and died as it got to its feet. The flying swarm got decimated during its attack on the four opponents, but none of them came away unscathed. Light began to glow again, and Azrael fixed his eyes on the Queen as it charged another ball of light. Spells pelted into Musth, and its exploding shot of white light blasted the elephant again. The ceiling began to leak stone dust, and Azrael shouted, “The ceiling, guys! It’s growing too unstable!”
Musth’s health dropped to twenty-four percent, and an ominous, oppressive feeling came over the entire room. Elephant blood began to form little balls where it had fallen. Then all the blood spheres shot towards the massive Bull Mammoth. Azrael and his team dodged the projectiles but the Yewman wasn’t so lucky as it had been mid-attack on Musth. The blood balls tore its remaining health away, and it fell to the ground in a lifeless heap. The balls collided with Musth, and its health began to climb again.
It climbed right back up to eighty percent before a red mist began to surround its massive body. The armor plates began to shine and morph into spiked armor—transforming Musth into a battering ram of death. The elephant looked like a spiky hedgehog or porcupine. The red mist finished by coalescing on its tusks and trunk. The tusks became huge, curved sabers of death, and the trunk grew to resemble a morningstar head.
He looked over to see the Enbarr’s red glow begin to fade as Gyr pulled an ax from its chest. Azrael checked his Ether pool to find it at seventy-eight percent. That fight and the talking had lasted just around five minutes, based on his Ether recovery rate. He felt a desire to give up, but clenched his jaw in stubborn refusal as he glared at Oberan.
Ogma jumped in to replace the Enbarr, and both Oberan and Ogma blurred as bangs sounded from a half dozen places in their twenty-foot sparring circle. They separated a moment later, and Oberan crowed, “Come now, cousin. If you force me to, I will kill you!”
Ogma was cut in half a dozen places, and Oberan seemed only to have minor injuries. Azrael couldn’t tell if those were from the Enbarr or Ogma. Azrael looked to Musth to see it destroying what remained of the bees. The Queen was just a twitching corpse on the end of one of its morningstar flanges.
Azrael saw Jophi firing spell after spell and Dara running around to collect arrows as the fighting continued throughout the room. Azrael desperately tried to think of something to do. His eyes flicked to the ceiling. He looked over to Bat, who was on the other side of the room, cowering in a relatively safe area. He shouted, “Get to Bat—both of you!” He didn’t care about Ogma at the moment. He might need him to hold Oberan back for the time being, but what his fate became didn’t matter.
Azrael charged his blade with seven Soul Strikes and thrust the sword towards an enormous crack he could see. Simultaneously, he shouted, “Release ten!” Seventeen stacks launched from his blade, and Azrael felt his feet slide backward along the stone floor. He didn’t watch to see what would happen and began following Dara and Jophi toward Bat. Arms grabbed him around the waist and easily lifted him.
Azrael had a moment to register that Ogma had caught him, and was now aiding his retreat as the grinding of his skill started up. The cracks above Musth grew until suddenly the falling dust became chunks of rock. They pelted Musth, and Azrael attempted to locate Oberan and his two guards. They had retreated in the other direction which, unfortunately, was their path out of this place. Based on their quick actions, Azrael could only hope that Musth would die.
His group watched as the ceiling caved in, and dust filled the air. Jophi coughed, “Do you think that killed it?”
Bat squeaked, “Did it have any more recovery abilities?”
Ogma sneezed before responding, “Many, but I doubt it can recover from being under a pile of stone.”
They had won—but didn’t have time to enjoy the victory as a massive sucking wind evacuated the dust from the chamber to reveal Oberan, Gyr, and Yonel standing at the peninsula of the collapse.
Azrael thought they would begin attacking them but saw that they were, in fact, looking up at something. Azrael followed their gaze to see a massive, transparent glass tank. The tank was sloshing liquid he couldn’t identify until Ogma cried, “Oberan, you were keeping the vat of Essence down here?”
Oberan looked at Ogma and then at the massive glass pool of… Essence. He blinked and shouted, “That whole thing is Essence! You’re kidding, your mother wouldn’t have trusted me with the location. The amount of power right there, for the taking. What are the other two colors around the dungeon core?”
Azrael felt his confusion grow. He couldn’t even see all the edges of the container holding the Essence. What he could see was easi
ly the volume of a small lake. Because of Oberan’s question, he looked to the space above the vessel and found a rainbow of colors. In the center was a glowing blue orb that could be nothing other than the Pit’s dungeon core. Around it, there was a pink string that pulsed in time with Oberan’s pommel. Wrapped around the pink strand was a red string, and then tying the entire contraption together was a thick orange band. All the colors pulsed and ebbed, creating a kaleidoscope of color.
Oberan answered his own question, “Danu must have placed two additional Heartstrings around the core! No wonder I could never discover the location of the Essence. That also explains why the Pit has been sluggish to my commands. She had control the entire time…”
Azrael noticed something glowing green from near his hand. He looked down to see Apep’s core surfacing beside him. He touched it, and Apep whispered into his mind, “If you can get me into that reservoir, I will have the power to get us out of here.”
Azrael whispered, “That is easier said than done! Why haven’t you gotten yourself in?”
“I am not powerful enough to break the capping device,” was Apep’s short response.
Azrael lifted the orb from the ground and said, “Then I won’t be strong enough either, but I will try…”
Should I really rely on someone else? Maybe the agreement with the dungeon core will be enough?
Oberan heard him speaking and sneered at them all. “Plotting some more, are you?” He looked at Gyr and Yonel, who looked at the reservoir greedily. In a single swing, he decapitated Yonel, who didn’t even have a chance to react. Gyr began to turn with a crinkle on his nose as he made an angry disgusted face. His head followed Yonel’s to the floor on Oberan’s backswing.
Ogma shouted, “What are you doing! They were your loyal supporters! Wait, you plan to try to take this—?” He was cut off as Oberan flew over the ground and stabbed him through the chest. Jophi howled and attempted to run to Ogma. His eyes widened, and he coughed blood. Oberan shoved Jophi away and even the casual shove was enough to knock her unconscious when she hit the wall. Azrael swallowed something that formed in his throat. Was that fear?
“Ogma!” A piercing shriek echoed through the depths of the hypogeum.
Oberan’s eyes widened, and his face morphed to an unreadable expression. “By Morrigan’s black feathers, Danu is here! I must hurry then,” he muttered to himself, his voice filled with what Azrael would describe as fear.
Azrael huffed a breath out in a sad chuckle at the comical turn of events. If Danu was here, they were all going to die—including Oberan. All because of this stupid man’s greed. It was ironic because Azrael was going to die either way. So, Oberan had caused his own death.
So much for choosing how I die.
Oberan sneered at him and came over to lift him by the collar of his ragged black shirt. “Perhaps I should cut out your tongue and blame you for the deed—she always did hate the Sovereign Empire.” He looked up at the sound of something crashing. Dust began to fall all around Azrael and Oberan.
Azrael tried to fight back, his hands scrabbling over the hood and powerful enchanted fabrics Oberan wore. Azrael felt like a puppy scrabbling at the jaws of a bear. Maybe if he had used a skill he would have annoyed the arena master, but his intention wasn’t to beat Oberan. Only to escape...
With a casual flick, Azrael careened into the wall, and Oberan jumped up into the crevasse the roof collapse had caused. Azrael felt his back crash into the wall. His neck whipped and strained, softening the blow slightly to his head as it struck the wall with a crack. A stunned debuff floated up into his interface. The armor had saved him from unconsciousness, but he wouldn’t have moved even if he could have, slumped against the wall as he was.
When the stun wore off, he looked up to find Oberan climbing the rough crack from the inside. Distantly he wondered what would happen if someone entered that reddish pool of power. A massive boom echoed from the doorway nearby, and the colossal stone slab flew to collide with the pile of rubble at the center of the chamber.
A fiery-haired woman with pale skin entered the room. She held a spear in one hand, and her plaited red hair hung down past her knee. She surveyed the room with bright blue eyes that took in everything at a glance. Azrael shivered as her penetrating gaze passed over him, but she continued looking up at the vessel and Oberan’s climbing form.
She shouted, “Oberan, you know that is for Ogma! Get down here—you can’t use it while already being on a planet, anyway!”
Oberan cackled back, “How can Ogma use it if you don’t save his life, Danu?”
Danu’s head snapped back to Ogma’s form, which she had passed over earlier. Azrael blinked, and she was kneeling beside her son, her hands glowing bright gold. Azrael wasn’t sure she could save him—hadn’t it been too long?
Danu sent one spell into his body with a touch, and then breathed through the other hand to create a golden mist. The mist hung around Ogma, but nothing happened. A tear fell from Danu’s cheek. She cried, “Breathe, you ungrateful boy!”
She hit him with another pulse of golden light from her hand. Ogma took a stuttering breath that drew all of the golden mist into his body. His face immediately became less pale, and Danu smiled. She then turned and, with natural grace, threw her spear at Oberan’s climbing form. It seemed like she would hit him until he blurred and was standing on the rounded edge of the vessel.
The glowing spear course-corrected, and Oberan deflected it with ease – causing it to crash into the glass. The glass cracked, and Oberan shouted, “Thanks for the assist, Mother!”
Oberan struck the crack with his sword and widened it. Then stepped into the hole he’d created in the container, with a flash of green accompanying him from inside his hood. Azrael grinned.
Despite the improbability, he had gotten Apep into the container.
Chapter Forty-Three
Danu shrieked in rage and lifted Ogma over a shoulder—then blurred, carrying him out of the chamber faster than Azrael’s eyes could follow.
Azrael collected Jophi and passed her off to Dara after she helped Bat to his feet. The Essence vat flashed ominously red and began to slosh. Azrael called to Dara and Bat, “Follow the crashing—Danu is probably headed to the shipyard, to escape!”
He took lead of the group because he had the Ether-Tech armor. He still hoped they wouldn’t run into any creatures in the hypogeum or that Danu cleared them on her mad dash for her ship.
Bat was able to follow the trail she took thanks to something obvious only to the blind batman. He redirected them several times as the floor bucked under the fleeing group. Unfortunately, a moment later he shouted, “There is a Wendigo headed right for us. I think it heard the noise of Danu’s flight as well.”
The hypogeum floor seemed to jump under the group’s feet. Everyone but Azrael fell. That seemed to wake up Jophi, at least. The destabilization of the dungeon was getting worse at an alarming rate. Azrael wondered if the quakes were localized to the dungeon even. Last time, placing a person in a vat of Essence had resulted in the creation of a planet, according to Ogma. What would happen if a Planetary God ascended while on another planet?
He took quick stock of his arsenal. He didn’t have any stored attacks in his Soul Storage, and a quick check of his Ether pool showed it had recovered to near the thirty percent mark. He only had the armor and his sword which, admittedly, were huge advantages.
“Just one?” Azrael asked Bat. At the batman’s nod, Azrael nodded too. In his Ether-Tech armor, he had a single advantage he hadn’t had during the challenge competition. He could probably take a hit and avoid the disease debuff for a time. But there was also no healer here to save him. He still needed to be very careful.
Azrael glanced at the recovering group. Dara was out of arrows and was currently helping a dizzy and disoriented Jophi to her feet; they wouldn’t be of any use. Bat may be of help, though.
“Assist me in any way you can, Bat,” Azrael commanded as he pushed the suit of armo
r to its full capacity. He sprinted towards the direction Bat indicated the Wendigo approached from, wanting to create a buffer zone between him and the group. Considering this creature’s undead nature, he worried it may attempt to ignore an opponent surrounded by mechanical metal.
The floor began to vibrate below him and he adjusted his plan on the fly. There was no chance to play the long game now. This dungeon, and possibly the entire planet, would soon be a death trap. He turned a corner and saw the smile first.
His body shivered as the inhuman expression met him. He shook it off and charged two Soul Strikes into his sword. He activated Soul Cloak as well, and just in the nick of time as four claws of the creature shot towards him like ninja stars.
He couldn’t afford to waste the Soul Strike Ether on knocking any of the projectiles out of the air. He could only maneuver his body to help his Cloak in making them miss. He heard the sound of metal screeching as two of the ninja star-like claws sunk into the Ether-Tech armor. Azrael sighed in relief. They hadn’t punctured the armor; his debuff bar was clear.
The Wendigo slashed its arms at him and he swung his sword. He severed a single appendage at the wrist but the other collided with his shoulder. More whining metal screeched from his shoulder. The Wendigo latched on, attempting to pry into the tin can he wore.
Azrael tried to attack the creature but it pressed itself in close to him, making it impossible to connect his sword to undead flesh.
Bat shouted, “It’s immune to my sonic attacks! I don’t think it feels pain.”
Well, so much for that option. Azrael took a deep breath. There was a single option left. He stored his sword in his Ring of Holding and bear hugged the Wendigo. Once he was sure he had the creature locked down, he initiated the self-destruct sequence of the armor and commanded it to release him.
He stepped out of the back of the suit and immediately ran towards Bat. Without him inside, the armor wouldn’t hold the Wendigo for long, but that was why he had set the fuse for such a short time. He tackled the batman and pulled him around the corner just as an explosion rocked the hallway they had just been down. Dust billowed around the corner and coated them.
