Or at least, I won’t die.
Now. Fire or lightning.
Fire? Heat the blade and save mana?
Gonna hurt. Hurt a lot.
Growling, Ryker thought on the dagger, and how to make this work.
Groaning with his mouth closed, Ryker started to heat up the blade with a fire spell frame. He needed to make sure it would fill the wound fully and sear everything inside. Which meant he might have to shimmy it around.
Channeling a flash of mana through the spell crucible, the spell activated.
He somehow managed to keep himself from driving the knife deeper, or yanking it out, as he pressed the now scorching blade to the wound.
The stench of cooking flesh reached his nose, and he wanted to gag.
The pain wracked him, lasting for a lifetime, before it finally ended a few seconds later.
Setting the blade down, Ryker looked into the blackened slit in his flesh. No blood flowed out, but the area looked like burnt steak.
Taking in a sobbing breath, he turned his head to Adele and Diane. The two of them had fallen silent as soon as his spell went off.
“Ryker, are you okay?” Diane asked, one hand raised towards him, the other still pressed to her side. It looked like it was the same spot that he’d been stabbed in.
He smiled at her, briefly wondering if she was suffering some sympathy pains.
With a nod of his head he sighed. “I think I’m okay. Need to get to Marybelle though and have her check me out. Claire stuck me pretty deep.”
“Fucking cunt. I’ll kill her! That’s not just betraying us for Veronica, but trying to straight up assassinate you,” Adele growled out.
“We’ll need to get out of here first, Adele,” Diane said. “Ryker, I think you were a bit busy at the time, but did you hear what the soldiers were saying? More church troopers have arrived. They’re massing.”
“Time to get out then. We’ll need to—”
A muddled roar of voices brought Ryker to a stop.
It ended quickly, being replaced with the sound of weapons clashing.
“There they are,” Diane said. “What’s the plan, dear?”
Ryker thought quickly. He wasn’t good for this kind of thing.
He was a wizard.
Making something explode? Good to go.
Planning an escape?
“We go out a window. Preferably the opposite side of my bitch cousin,” Adele said. “They won’t expect a counterattack. I’ll lead. Out the window, kill whoever’s nearby, into the alley. Break into a house, steal clothes, start making our way to… where are we going?”
“The inn. We need to get into the dungeon proper,” Ryker said.
Struggling to his feet, he felt his side tightening up around the wound. Sticking a finger into his charred flesh with a wince, he waited a second, then pulled it out.
No blood.
It was sealed up. For now.
“Shit. That’s a bit far. Whatever,” Adele muttered. Reaching to her side she pulled her sword free.
Ryker didn’t know what type it was, nor did he care.
Sharp and pointy was all he knew about it.
Adele stormed out of the conference room. Dodging past guards rushing around, she elbowed and thumped her way to a window in the corner of the building.
Her head ducked down as she peered out of it.
Nodding her head once, she shoved the guard out of the way and slid through the open window.
Ryker grimaced at the idea of doing the same.
Cursing Claire, he managed to wiggle out of the window without too much trouble. Dropping to the dirt he immediately surveyed the area.
Adele had downed three men in the time it took him to get down from the window. Two of the men looked to still be alive, but the third wasn’t moving.
That mattered little right now though. So long as they couldn’t fight or chase his group, that was the goal.
She was working on three more at the same time. Her sword danced to and fro as she battled them to a standstill.
Gathering the smallest amount of mana required to activate a lightning spell, Ryker moved towards the fight.
They needed to get through these people and into the alley as fast as possible.
All around them light pantheon troops were making their way to them.
Activating the spell, Ryker didn’t stop moving forward. Thin as a hair, blue lightning crackled across the gap and struck the closest soldier in the arm. Dropping his sword, he didn’t even survive the next second to contemplate how to pick it back up. Adele’s sword pierced his neck and came right back out.
Having dispatched one of her opponents, she was able to clean up the other two with several swipes of her blade. One lost a hand and the other she hamstrung and moved on.
“Come on!” she called to himself and Diane.
Diane held her dress up with her hands and hurried towards Adele. Ryker picked up a sword from one of the soldiers and took the rear guard position. Moving quickly and as quietly as they could, they jogged through the backstreet.
Dodging down an unexpected turn, Adele turned them down another narrow corridor of space. Another turn and they were heading back the way they came. A fourth turn like that and Ryker now didn’t know which way they were going anymore.
Wheezing and gasping for breath, Ryker kept up with the two. Barely.
At some point he’d dropped the sword and hadn’t even realized it.
Way too messed up.
Tar chirped at him from beside him. He fluttered in the air, watching him.
“Will be fine. Need food. Rest,” Tar said.
Up ahead Adele had stopped. She was staring at something beyond the alley.
There was sounds of clashing blades and shouts, but Ryker couldn’t make heads or tails out of what was actually going on up there.
Diane came to a stop beside Adele, her head turned in the exact same direction.
Finally, Ryker caught up to the two of them.
Standing in the middle of the plaza were five people. Two of those people were the champions he’d seen previously. The other three were unknown to him.
Standing incredibly tall was a person in a suit of immaculate black plate mail. The armor had small red accents and minor coloring, but on the whole, it was an inky black. Resting next to their big plate boots was a giant double-axe.
Standing next to them was a lion-headed beast. They weren’t rare in these parts, but they weren’t common either. Dressed in similar black plate mail, though not as much, the lion carried an axe in one hand and a hatchet in the other.
The third person was standing between the other two.
It was another beastkin, though from this distance it looked like one of the more humanoid races. They were dressed in dark black robes and carried a staff. A golden amulet lay on their chest, right above a well-endowed chest. Black hair with black cat ears that were perched on top of her head was the clue that Ryker was using to assume a cat tribesman.
Unfortunately, Ryker realized who they were. The coloring of the armor was that of the black legions of the dark lord in the north.
It was unmistakable.
“—art’s name, I’ll kill you!” shouted the champion of light.
“I am here as a special envoy. Here to speak with the Count of Dungeon. I am not here to discuss anything with either of you,” said the beastkin in the robe. “It is clear you are not here by invitation either. Direct me to the Count, or please kindly get out of our way.”
Blurring forward, the champion of light struck out at the speaker.
The lion flicked their left hand out as if they were swatting at something. Spinning away at great speed, the champion of light was literally backhanded across the plaza.
“Know your place, fool. I lead the third army. I’ve killed many of your kind,” growled the lion. “Your strength is lacking to properly challenge me. It’s only by the wish of a higher power that I don’t take your head from your shoulder
s.”
Not learning their lesson, the champion of light sped forward again, howling at the top of their lungs.
Lifting their staff in one hand, the envoy spoke one word that Ryker couldn’t hear.
Suddenly there was an explosion of gore as the champion of light burst apart.
Diane gasped loudly, pressing her hands to her mouth.
Both ears on top of the beastkin’s head twitched toward Ryker and company.
Then the head turned. She was beautiful and terrifying. Golden eyes bore into him. Scouring him of any and all thoughts.
“You,” commanded the envoy. “Please come here.”
“Fuck that!” Adele shouted. Grabbing Diane by one hand, she bolted down an adjacent alleyway.
Ryker felt better for having gotten a few deep breaths and managed to set off at a jog. Behind him in the plaza an explosion went off.
He didn’t know what it was, but he didn’t care to find out. They needed to get to the inn.
“It’s up ahead!” Adele called out, now sprinting fully. Diane was practically being dragged behind her.
A beam of dark black nothing blasted down the street in front of the women, causing Adele and Diane to stumble backward.
There was a cry, and then the champion of the dark pantheon went flying by as if they’d been thrown.
Ryker caught up to the two women just as they started forward towards the inn again.
Sitting across the street from them, the entire front of it was wrecked and shattered. There was still enough room to get in, though. All they had to do was get into the dungeon and this would end.
Glancing to his left, he saw the reason the champion had gone the other direction after trying to snipe Adele.
Massive and imposing at this distance, the fully armored warrior was marching towards them.
Slow and inexorable.
Feeling his soul quiver with fear, Ryker couldn’t even begin to fathom how to fight such a monster.
Putting everything into his driving need to get into the dungeon Ryker focused on that.
“Stop!” came the shouted voice of the envoy.
As if his very heels were on fire Ryker surged forward.
Diane and Adele ducked under the broken front entrance and disappeared inside.
The champion of the dark gods appeared in a dark flash. Right in front of Ryker.
Time seemed to slow as the champion’s left hand began to rise up.
Grasping at whatever mana he had available, Ryker fashioned an empty half-sphere of force. Tying a mana vampire spell to it, he targeted it to the champion. That it would feed on him as long as it was in contact with him.
Then Ryker smashed a massive propulsion spell to the rear of the whole spell build. With a quick tweak he angled it up in a forty-five degree angle from Dungeon. Centering the construct on the champion, and controlling his mana flow on execution, he activated the spell.
The time it took for him to do all this had been less than half a second.
When the spell activated, the champion had just finished raising their arm.
A wave of energy burst free from Ryker.
The spell cupped the champion, caught them up, and then went flying up and away from dungeon.
Screaming the entire way, the champion slowly faded from sight.
Or so Ryker noticed as he ducked into the inn.
He wasn’t about to sit around and admire his handiwork when the envoy and her guards were still there.
Wanting him personally. He had no doubt the envoy had realized who he was the moment he’d been spotted.
Tripping over something, Ryker smacked into the ground. Scrambling forward, he crawled under several broken roofing beams.
The sound of timber breaking from behind him made him glance backward.
The lion was hacking at the wood, its brown glowing eyes fixed on him.
“Wait there,” it growled at him. “The envoy wishes to discuss—wait!”
Ryker had not done anything of the sort. Rather than wait for it to finish, he’d started forward again.
Coming up in a huff he saw the hallway down to the dungeon stairs.
Louder and more violent noises, and the sudden muted whumpf of a spell, made the hairs on his neck stand up on end.
Ryker fell again, and slid into the opening of the dungeon.
Gracelessly, he bounced, bumped, and flopped down the stairs. Coming to rest in a heap on the first step of the dungeon, he whimpered. His side hurt immensely and he was sure he’d opened up that stab wound again.
“Ah, there you are,” said a voice at the top of the stairs. “Come. Let me treat your wound and—”
Looking up to the side, Ryker saw the envoy.
Then a massive stone slab fell down, closing the dungeon.
Two sets of hands grabbed him up under the shoulders, and started to pull him deeper into the dungeon.
“See? Fuck them. We made it. Now we just gotta find the Hob with the big tits,” Adele said.
“You really are crass at times,” Diane said.
“What, they’re massive.”
“Hmph… well, yes. They are massive, aren’t they. Her name’s Marybelle, you know. She’s a very sweet woman.”
Adele snickered at that. “I do know, and she is nice, but they’re giant.”
Ryker shook his head and immediately regretted it.
“You’re both idiots,” he said. “They really are huge though.”
“I’ve sealed the door. The death of that champion almost overwhelmed me and the core. We’ll be reforged in an hour, but until then, I can do little. Marybelle is in the next room waiting for you. We’ll not be doing anything else until you’re healed. I’m sorry for not assisting you, my precious king, I couldn’t turn from my task. My sincere and everlasting apologies, my dearest. I’ll atone in any way you see fit,” Wynne said.
“You’ll make it up to me. Have no doubt of that. You’ll make it up to me repeatedly. That or I’ll pull your wings off and feed them to you,” Ryker promised her.
“Ah, I’m afraid I’ve never had sexual relations if that’s what you’re threatening. Though I’m clearly big enough now to match you in size in my fairy form, so it isn’t impossible anymore.
“There are no records of Fairies actually have sexual relations in their normal forms, however. Just… be as gentle with me as you were with Adele?”
“Going to pull them off. First the left, feed it to you, then the right, and feed that one to you as well.”
Epilogue
Ryker shambled up to the doorway and peered inside.
Meino stood off in the corner of the room, her head tilted to one side as she watched him.
She had her new weapon in her hands, a large two-handed spear looking thing. He didn’t know the name for it and he probably never would. Belted to her side was a wicked looking mace.
Also new.
Martial weapons didn’t hold much interest for him.
Too complicated.
“Master?” asked the Minotaur.
“Yes?”
“Are you coming in? I brought your chair and table in here. I tried to secure one of your concubines as well, but they were all busy. Charlotte said she’d be down as quick as she could get away to service you,” Meino said, her large eyes staring into him honestly.
“Ah… I think I could do without the servicing, to be honest. I’m a little worse for wear,” Ryker said, walking into the room gingerly.
Marybelle had only finished putting him back together maybe eight hours ago. After that he’d fallen asleep right away.
“As your new personal guard, it’s my duty to take care of you in all regards,” Meino said seriously.
Everyone had agreed on Meino taking up that role after what had happened. Apparently the idea was to have her attached to him at the hip.
“If your concubine cannot care for you, you can touch my chest. Or I could offer myself as concubine. I promise to be gentle. Most humans do not find my
race particularly attractive, though. Even you said I was cute as a puppy. One of the Fairies told me that humans would view it as bestiality on top of that,” Meino said.
Ryker frowned at that as he approached the chair.
It was the one from his old office. Running his fingers along the armrest of it, he couldn’t help but feel a little sentimental.
He’d spent a number of hours and days simply sitting here working on his dungeon.
Some of the best days he could remember were the early ones. When he was entirely focused on building more and more to the dungeon.
Creating people.
Fashioning a world. With Meino watching him blankly at the time, too.
“You’re no beast, Meino, and you’ve got some pretty great assets if you ask me, but I’d have to decline the offer. To be honest, I think I may have to stop fooling around with the Fairies soon. I doubt my wives would be happy with me if they found out,” Ryker said.
“Thank you, Master. I’ll keep my bed empty just in case,” Meino said seriously. She moved over to stand behind his chair.
Snorting at that, Ryker sat himself down in the chair and made himself comfortable.
Looking at the table in front of himself that he’d used for projections, he couldn’t help but feel a sense of “home” in this room he’d never been in before.
“All it needs is a desk, a bookcase, and a desk chair,” Ryker muttered.
Arria flew in through a nearby wall and fluttered in front of him.
“Ryker! I’m glad you’re alright,” said the wisp.
“So am I. For a while there I wasn’t so sure,” Ryker admitted.
“Marybelle said you were actually much worse than anyone thought. You were bleeding into yourself. On the inside.
“Oh! I have a few messages for you. Charlotte wanted you to check in with her. She has a situation with Rob. She said she has to take care of this before she can come see you? Wynne also said she’ll be along momentarily to speak with you,” reported the wisp.
“Great. How are Adele and Diane doing?”
“Sleeping. Both appear to be fine, even after you telling them everything.”
Ryker nodded once.
It’d been a strange conversation to have with them. To admit he was more or less the dungeon lord and was responsible for everything that occurred within it.
Dungeon Deposed Page 38
