The Quizard Mountains: A Dungeon Core Epic (Station Cores Book 2)

by Jonathan Brooks

  She began to worry that corruption may have infiltrated their ruling council. It wouldn’t be the first time it had happened – absolute power tended to corrupt absolutely. While most of the elder council members she personally knew wouldn’t sanction anything even remotely like this, she didn’t know a lot about the newest ones. It was entirely possible (and even likely) that they were working with Cordpower in some way. However, she wasn’t here to investigate possible Guild corruption – she was here to solve a mystery.

  Most blamed the death of Whisp on Brint, who was frequently seen visiting her house at all hours of the night. Although nothing untoward happened during these visits – he usually stayed outside after a brief conversation and a delivery of some sort of package – the rumormongers present in quiet villages like this were rife with speculation. No one was actually present to see what happened to her (not even the supposed Guild “watcher”), but the next day they found so much blood inside her house that they concluded that Brint must’ve been rejected by his “friend” for the last time.

  No physical body was ever found; most assumed that Brint had taken and hidden her corpse in the forest somewhere. A cursory search was performed days later by the new Guild transfers just inside the forest, but other than a trail of blood that petered out after about 500 feet they found no concrete evidence. They dared not to go further into the forest, since there were just the two of them; if they were somehow killed by dangerous beasts that were known to inhabit the surrounding area, the village would’ve been defenseless. Unfortunately for Rosewyn and their current objective, that was the extent of the village’s investigation.

  Nowhere was there mention of the curious “Power Potions”, nor was there any mention of the three who were sent by Cordpower. The fact that no one saw any potions didn’t surprise her – if Brint had been supplying them via the package he was delivering (which is what Rosewyn now suspected), no one would have known. However, she was also beginning to suspect that the murder he was being accused of wasn’t performed by a rejected admirer. Since the previous Guild reps were no longer around, it made the whole situation smell fishy.

  It couldn’t be a coincidence that nobody saw anyone from Cordpower – the likelihood that their presence was covered up was too great to be ignored. When they finished with this little task, she would see what they could do to stop the potential corruption in the Guild from spreading even further. She knew that eliminating all corruption was next to impossible – it was inevitable. However, allowing for the murder and cover-up of innocent (or even not-so-innocent) people was something she couldn’t ignore.

  After listening to various opinions, including the ones from the current Guild reps, Rosewyn was able to determine their next course of action. She didn’t think spending another day here would be beneficial, so she found Moxwell at the Mayor’s house, greedily stuffing his face with sweetbread without a care of how it looked. She smiled at the sight, happy to see her husband enjoying himself even when they were out on a job.

  “Thanks for letting us stay here tonight, we’ll be out of your hair in the morning,” she told the Mayor, who had the weathered face and stern expression of someone used to the hardships of surviving on the border, “c’mon Mox, let’s get some sleep. We’ve got a big day tomorrow.”

  He looked confused for a moment, which she translated as surprise that they already had a destination picked out. He recovered quickly and followed her into the guest room the Mayor had gracefully provided for their use. The room was fully furnished, lavishly she thought, but nevertheless it appeared very comfortable. It turned out that regardless of her own feelings about her power, the benefits sometimes outweighed the uncomfortableness it engendered in others.

  “So, where are we going?” Moxwell asked her when they were alone in the room.

  “We’re going on a hike,” she replied, her own expression mirroring the disappointment she saw on his face. She hoped it didn’t take too long since her feet still hurt – after this was done, she planned on staying in one place for the rest of her life.

  Chapter 22 – Marching orders

  Brint knew that The Milton was entrusting him to do something vitally important. Sure, acquiring resources from the creatures he had been hunting the last couple of weeks was important – and needed – but now he was doing something different. Similar, perhaps, but the objective was different.

  Instead of searching on his own to find the beasts (wherever they currently roamed), he was going to them – to their lair, their home turf so to say. He had experience rooting out some of the monsters who had established their own little part of the forest, but this time he was going into a confined space where whatever was in there knew the location better than he did. In essence…he was going in blind.

  Which wasn’t an entirely unknown feeling for him. When he first started leading his band of dungeon-supplied Combat Units (he had taken to thinking of them that way since that was how The Milton referred to them), he was frequently journeying into the unknown, having no idea what was around the next tree. It might be a small “squirrel”, or it might be something that could kill them all without breaking a sweat. Fortunately for Brint – and his surviving Units – they hadn’t encountered anything that killed them all. Well, all but those Goddess-damned horrifying fish in the river. He shivered when he thought how close they all came to death that day.

  From that point on, however, he considered himself lucky to have survived everything he had gone through. There were some close calls – where he himself was in more danger than his team – but he always managed to scrape by somehow. Unlikely as it seemed, he felt stronger somehow from all those near-death experiences.

  He was no longer as squeamish at the sight of blood and gore – he had grown particularly numb to creature on creature violence. It wasn’t insensitivity toward the pain and death his…small army, now…inflicted; it was the sheer number of so many beasts roaming the forests that everything they did seemed to have no effect on their population. He returned to the dungeon every night to rest, where he fell into bed, exhausted, and was asleep almost instantly.

  When he’d return to the area he was previously hunting, it was like everything his team did the day before was for naught. It wasn’t necessarily the same types of creatures that greeted them, but there was almost as many. This made progress toward exploring – which, granted, wasn’t his primary objective (but it was almost fun after a while to find new and interesting places) – slow-going; with the different Combat Units he received from The Milton, however, it became easier and easier to travel further.

  As he glanced up from his current mount, he could see the first of the new Combat Units The Milton had supplied him after the disastrous events at the river. Five of the Quanks[19] – strange name, but I noticed that most of the Units that have some sort of Quizard in them start with a Q – were ranging ahead of their group, forming the first line of defense against any potential threats they encountered. He was told that it was made from the combination of Quizard, Scaly Bear, Proctan, and Snappy Turtle DNA. Whatever that was.

  Although it looked similar to a Quizard, their outer skin was made of a slightly flexible shell, the same one they had such a hard time breaking open that belonged on the Snappy Turtle they found on the bank of the river. It was so durable that Brint had yet to see anything make more than a large scratch, though he was plainly aware that their eyes were vulnerable. There was one occurrence when one of the Quanks got an eye-full of beetle chitin when it was blindsided by a Tricerabeetle. It was able to heal the injury due to its Self-Regeneration ability, but it just demonstrated its other weakness – poor eyesight.

  The thick skin covering its eyes camouflaged its weak spot, but it also hindered its vision. Which usually mattered for naught when they were in the heat of battle – it just needed to sit there and take the abuse. Of course, their lack of perception was compensated by his other Combat Units.

  Behind the Quanks, in a staggered line, was his compli
ment of Qwizards. He now had four of the fast, fire-starting giant lizards. Three of them followed behind the front line, but he kept the one that had lived the longest near his mount. He wouldn’t say he had a fondness for it, but he was used to having it around to defend him. It was the one that got him away from the river when every other Unit had perished, so he figured he owed it for saving his life. He would’ve named it, but The Milton cautioned against becoming too familiar with them – a statement he could tell was backed up by personal experience. That was fine with him because since they were the main damage-dealers, they tended to suffer the most injuries.

  He caught a glimpse of another one of his Units as it slunk through the trees with just a whisper of sound and the barest of visibility. He knew that if the Quassassins[20] (again, it had a Quizard in there somewhere) didn’t want him to see it, he wouldn’t even know it was there. The fact that he could see even bare glimpses of one of them meant that it intended for him to know it was there.

  A blend of Ombre Jaguar, Quizard, Proctan, and a Spiderwolf, it had the strange ability to change the color of its fur so that it could hide within plain sight. When it moved too quickly, it was harder for it to keep up with the changing environment and it could be seen as a blur amongst the trees. Usually, however, it tended to move just fast enough to keep up with the group, always staying invisible. At least, until battle commenced.

  The origin of the Quassassin came about when he had trouble catching some extremely quick little mice that he came across. They weren’t quite what he needed – since they were a bit smaller than would be worth carrying back to the dungeon – but they were annoying.

  Faster than even his fastest Qwizard by at least half, they wouldn’t stay still long enough to catch them. They would see something coming and would dart in and bite it before running away. The damage was negligible, even when he himself was targeted; that didn’t change that fact that it was a nuisance.

  The Milton saw this and created the Quassassin, hoping to be able to sneak up on them without them knowing it. It worked…once. He didn’t even get the chance to bring it back to the dungeon because the stealthy cat ate it before he knew what was happening. Brint usually let his Units feed after a kill and they brought the rest back or had a drone do it. He learned that cats usually had a particular liking to mice, which was evident after there was no sign of it afterwards. He didn’t worry too much because there were always more…of course, after that, they apparently decided that there were easier targets to annoy and he didn’t see any more.

  That didn’t mean that they were useless from then on. Quite the contrary, they were able to sneak up on almost every beast they fought, attacking them usually from behind and doing a bit of lasting damage before racing away. The only downside to them was that they were relatively fragile. He had lost two of them to some unlucky stray hits while they were in the process of sneaking up on their targets.

  Currently, he had three along for the journey that were out there…somewhere. He knew they were nearby because when he pulled up the “Tactical Map” he could see their markers, but even when he looked to where they should be he didn’t see them.

  From one of his team who didn’t like to be seen, to some who loved the attention, he looked high up along the massive trees to see one his flocks of Big Yellow Birdalopes.[21] They tended to bunch up in groups of five as they spun and dove around each other in a pretty symphony of movement. They were so mesmerizing that he had trouble keeping his eyes off them once they attracted his attention.

  Which was one of their main purposes.

  The Milton designed them by combining a Big Yellow Bird, Jackalope, Proctan, and strangely enough – a Spiderwolf. Because of Brint’s inability to reach flying creatures – which, fortunately, were few – the powerful Station Core designed the Birdalope to act as an aerial attacker, scout, and distraction. Because of enhancements to the appearance of their feathers (which were a beautiful arrangement of yellow and white shades) and their graceful movement/dance in the air, they tended to attract the attention of beasts who would watch the birds instead of his other Units. It didn’t work all the time and when it did it wasn’t usually for very long, but it was normally enough to get a jump on their targets. That’s why he had a group of them to their front, their rear, and to each side.

  They were also useful for suicidal attacks; their super-sharp antlers could inflict a massive amount of damage as well as injecting a poison that would slow down whatever they impacted. Brint didn’t particularly care for throwing their lives away for a single attack because he thought that it was a waste of resources. That didn’t stop him from utilizing it a few times when he was desperate, but he treated it as a last-resort option.

  They were also great scouts – they had wonderful eyesight and could see a mouse moving on the ground at 1000 feet. Unfortunately, they “danced” in the sky so much that it was hard to watch through their eyes unless he specifically gave them orders. It wasn’t necessary for the most part, however, because they were able to see things well enough on their own that he was usually alerted from his tenuous link he constantly connected to them. His ability had grown so strong and his power pool was so deep (at least compared to where he started) that it put very little strain on his power.

  Bringing up the rear, he glanced back at his ranged attackers. Unusual in the fact that they could use tools and weapons, the D-Ranged Monkeys[22] scampered along, their eyes constantly roaming. They were the newest addition to his growing army and were different from the Glider Monkeys that he had discovered during his explorations; bulging arm muscles and visible upper-arm strength were the biggest changes. Oh, and they had six arms.

  Somehow when the Glider Monkey was combined with a Spiderwolf – as well as a Scaly Bear and a Proctan – it gained the ability to grow additional limbs. Each of the six hands was holding a Weightonite tipped spear, although the quantity of the black and white stone was more like a super-thin triangle, with a few slivers placed among the shaft for balance. Despite the small amount of the heavy stone attached to it, it was all Brint could do to lift one of them a few inches off the ground. The D-Ranged Monkeys were a lot stronger than he was, luckily, so they were able to carry them around with ease.

  There hadn’t been a situation where he absolutely needed a ranged attacker yet, but The Milton insisted that if he was able to do damage from a distance, it would prevent a lot of the injuries and deaths that close combat could inflict on his troops. Anything that prevents casualties is good in my book. They had proved their worth already – they threw the spears they held with such force and precision that he’d seen them go entirely through a charging Tricerabeetle with ease.

  Thoughts of the Tricerabeetles they had fought caused him to look down on his mount. Seated comfortably in the middle of its massive flat shell, Brint marveled at how smooth the ride on the back of the Quartermaster[23] was compared to his previous painful rides on the back of Qwizards. Created from the amalgamation of a Tricerabeetle, Snappy Turtle, Proctan, and a Quizard, the Quartermaster (and again, a Quizard-enhanced Q creation) was essentially a large, flat, mobile platform.

  About 15 feet wide, the top of the strong transportation Unit was filled with supplies: extra spears, food, water direct from the Core Room, two sensor orbs, four drones, and – the most important and precious of all – a portable Power Generator and Molecular Converter. The Milton was pulling out all the stops for this expedition and sent along his spares, which meant that Whisp was going to have to go without access to it for a while.

  Well, at least until this expedition started mining.

  Brint was confident in his team – 37-strong now including the four groups of five Birdalopes – and was sure that they could defeat whatever he was up against. The Milton had told him that it was previously inhabited by Quizards (which is how he acquired the giant lizard for his own use), but that was decades in the past. He hadn’t sent anything inside since then because he didn’t want to risk alerting whatever el
se was in there to his presence. Which meant that there could be anything waiting for him.

  With a final look behind at the clearing that held their dungeon, he looked ahead and strengthened his resolve with a long inhalation of breath.

  It was time for Brint to finish what The Milton had started all those years ago.

  Chapter 23 – Miner difficulties

  The unending forest finally ended.

  It was a relief to see unfiltered sunlight again somewhere away from the dungeon clearing – it felt like it had been years since he was able to see more than a hundred feet in any direction. When he passed by the last smattering of trees, he caught his breath as he took in the sight unfolding before him.

  The valley wasn’t that wide – only about 200 feet across – and it had a small stream meandering its way through the middle of it. It was barely a fraction of the size of the river he found to the north, but it was likely that this was one of the tributaries that fed it; the direction it was flowing certainly indicated that the possibility was almost a certainty.

  Past the easily fordable waterway, he looked up and saw the first mountains he had ever seen. From his village, if he was to get enough height to see over the bordering trees, he could see a small blur in the distance where – at least from what he learned in school – there was a mountain range. That small blur had nothing on these behemoths.

  Standing over 1000 feet tall, the tops were rounded and smooth – totally unlike what he was expecting. The sides of the mountain didn’t slope up gradually; instead, they shot up in the air after a short gentle base. Interspersed along the bottom of the mountainside were caves, appearing to have been deliberately constructed because of their regularity. They were spaced roughly 250 feet apart – which was strange because he could’ve sworn that The Milton said that they were at least 500 feet apart. I wonder if some of us lived here and made those caves before The Beast War.