by DB King
“Ouch!” said Marcus aloud. “That would seriously hurt!”
Getting caught in the net would be a painful way to die, but there was no doubting that anyone caught in it would die. Even as he watched, the net constricted around the axe, squeezing around it like a nest of coiling snakes.
With great care, Marcus stepped over the red-hot mess the axe and the hot chain net had made. If that was the standard of corridor trap this dungeon had, he couldn’t even imagine what horrors might await him at the end of the corridor.
It seemed that the axe and the net were the only two traps that the corridor had to offer, but just as he approached the end, he found something entirely new. The corridor ended in a tall, narrow doorway of carved stone, and he could see beyond it a dark, yawning space, lit by fire.
By this doorway, a heavy, cut-crystal bottle filled with a deep blue liquid sat on the floor by the wall. Wary, he approached, but strangely enough there was no feeling of threat here. This seemed to Marcus to be a completely benign thing. The blue liquid in the clear crystal bottle glowed with a serene sapphire light.
He leaned down and picked it up. As he held it up, a sensation of power rushed through him, and he was immediately reminded of the feeling he’d experienced when he took the faerie powder and gained a new spell, all those years ago during his initiation in the thieves guild.
Could this be a spell? Suddenly, a feeling of certainty washed over him. He knew this was a spell. A spell meant just for him.
The thick, cut-crystal bottle reminded him of the decanters full of spirits in the cupboards at Diremage Xeron’s house. How long ago that seemed! Without any doubt remaining, he pulled the heavy stopper from the bottle, lifted it to his mouth, and drank.
A sweet taste flooded his mouth, and contradictory sensations ran through his body, warm and cool, dark and light, fast and slow. All coalesced into a powerful tingling sensation that rushed through his arms to his hands, and then, like mist clearing from the sea, he became aware of a new realm of power that he now had access to.
The power of water.
Through imbibing the liquid, Marcus had gained elemental powers of water. He could feel it rushing through his body, a hugely powerful water spell that was just dying to be cast. He held his hands up and concentrated. Water beaded on his palms, then began to run between his fingers. It gushed briefly, but quickly reduced to pouring down his hands and splashing on the floor, where it hissed and steamed on the hot stone.
Reining in the power for now, Marcus felt it withdraw slightly within him, ready to be used again at a moment’s notice.
It struck him that, unlike his other spells, this one didn’t seem to come with a display of its level and progress. What was this magic then? It must be something entirely new!
His head was spinning. Marcus had heard of the ancient wizards of great elemental power—who hadn’t?—but they were in the realm of legend. Children told stories of Coram the Fire-Wielder, Erin Stone-Hand, and the Wizards of the Wind, but no one believed them. Elemental power? Could this really be a side-effect of the dungeon? Could his dungeon really be providing spell potions that granted such immensely powerful affinities?
The new water affinity surged just below the surface of his soul, living proof that yes, it certainly could.
The thought of his earlier explorations of the dungeon elements came to mind. The dungeon table had shown that there were a wide range of impressive elemental powers that could be assigned to a dungeon chamber. Pestilence, Flight, Fire, Iron, and Sand had all been there, and Ella had said that the number of elements from a dungeon’s point of view was basically unlimited.
He looked at his hands. Did this mean that he could be granted elemental magic in as many styles as there were dungeon elements? Could he have control over the manipulation of metals? What would a Pestilence affinity look like? And Iron or a Sand affinity? Or an affinity for Flight? The possibilities were mind-bending.
Buoyed up by the sensation of power and potential, and feeling that his new water affinity would almost certainly be very useful in this new fire-element dungeon, Marcus decided to press ahead. He placed the empty crystal bottle down carefully where he had found it and turned toward the carved doorway.
Water bubbled under the surface of his hands as he stepped up to the carved doorway and looked through. Beyond, a nightmare unfolded.
A huge, vaulted chamber of black stone was lit by three massive bonfires laid out in a big triangle in the center. This dungeon was really enormous, easily twice or even three times the size of the shadow-duelist’s chamber—it was hard to tell in the garish, dancing firelight. The floor was coarse black sand, but around the bonfires, steel and iron structures shimmered in the glaring light of the flames.
There were nine large, elaborate scaffolds of iron and steel poles. They were chaotic, with jutting angles and protruding spikes all over them. Dangling in chains from these scaffolds were the charred corpses of men. The smell of roasted meat in the air turned Marcus’s stomach.
Without thinking about it, he stepped through the doorway into the chamber, and at that moment, a sheet of yellow flame whooshed into place, filling the doorway behind him. As with all the other chambers, he would have to clear this one of enemies before he could escape. He held his sword up, ready for whatever might come at him.
They came suddenly, and from all sides. Ratmen, but nothing like the ones he’d fought in the tunnels of the Underway. Those had been living creatures of flesh and blood. These were creatures of flame and red coals.
Their skin was black and red, like the glowing embers in the deep bed of a wood fire. They didn’t have fur as normal rats had; these rats had only black mail and leather over their skin, flickering and shifting as if on fire. Their eyes were burning coals, and flames belched from their mouths as they charged. Their feet left flaming prints on the ground.
Each rat was armed with a trident of hot steel that glowed a sullen red, and each one had a short, many-thonged whip of hot chains.
Marcus could not have said where they came from. Had they come from the fires? He didn’t think so. They seemed to emerge fully formed from the darkness around the cave. And there were so many of them! In previous dungeons, he’d faced four or five opponents at most. Here, he was faced with an army.
His eyes whipped from side-to-side, counting. There were ten, twenty, thirty, and more, at least fifty… no, easily a hundred! They thronged the chamber, and the sound of their whips hissing through the air was like a thousand snakes.
The heat was monstrous.
Marcus gave ground, backing toward the fires as more and more of the ratmen emerged from the darkness, circling, hemming him in. They didn’t seem inclined to get within range of his sword, however, and they moved with a slow, shambling gait, but for all that Marcus could feel his options narrowing terrifyingly quickly.
He was backing toward the metal scaffolds with the chained corpses. It struck him that these were the only things in the chamber—apart from the floor and the walls—that didn’t seem to be on fire. As he got closer to one of these, he glanced back at it to confirm. It was true—the rough-cast iron did not seem to be hot.
Perhaps these scaffolds hold the key to beating this dungeon? he wondered. It seemed the only possibility. There was no hope of winning against so many enemies if they made even the slightest attempt to resist him. Even with his magically enhanced strength and stamina, and all the spells he had learned and developed, Marcus was doubtful of his ability to cut his way through an endless swarm of burning ratmen.
The terrible enemies were shifting relentlessly forward. They surrounded the bonfires on every side now, filling the hall. Marcus glanced up. It seemed the only option was to climb the metal scaffold. A glance at the base of the scaffold showed him that it was firmly sunk into the ground—the ratmen would not be able to move it, even if they had the inclination.
He glanced at his enemies. They were still shambling toward him, pressed in by the ever-increasing
weight of more and more of their number coming in from behind.
I’ll climb, he decided, but I’ll take one or two out first. He was not going to retreat without giving his sword at least a taste of their burnt flesh.
“Come on then!” he yelled, darting toward the closest ratman.
The creature’s fiery whip hissed through the air toward him, but Marcus took the creature’s hand off at the wrist with a sudden slash. He brought his blade up to parry a blow from a rising trident. The red iron buckled under Marcus’s sword blow, and he stabbed the creature through the face with his third sweep.
The ratmen surged forward, and a glance over his shoulder showed Marcus that his escape up the scaffold was about to be cut off. Well, he had given his steel a taste of burning rat, but he didn’t want to pay for it with his life.
Dungeon masters have died in their own dungeons, Ella’s voice echoed in his head.
Marcus took a running leap and caught hold of a protruding iron pole with one hand. He lifted himself up as the rats swarmed the space around the fires. Marcus got his leg over the pole and boosted himself up another level. The iron and steel scaffold was like a nightmarish tree, with bare metal branches sticking out in all directions. He was able to quickly gain height, and, to his relief, the rats below did not seem about to climb the pole after him.
“Gorach!”
The voice made Marcus whirl. Where had it come from? He didn’t recognize the word, but the voice had been like a tumble of rocks down a dry well. It took him a moment to realize where it had come from—the corpse that hung from the scaffold with him.
It was on a level with him, blackened and burned and wrapped in chains, but for one arm that hung loose. As he watched, the thing opened its eyes and stared at him. Its mouth stretched wide in a horrific smile. The loose arm rose slowly to point a finger right at him.
“Gorach!” it said again, then began to laugh. The voice was intolerable.
Disgust filled Marcus, and with a sudden spring, he leaped toward the creature, smashing his sword into the chain that held it up. The chain snapped, and the corpse crashed to the ground, thumping down into the crowd of rats.
The rats began to stamp, raising their eyes and hands toward him and hissing. He looked out over the massive dungeon chamber. It was full. He gazed over a sea of burning eyes, hissing whips, and red-hot tridents. Far away, he saw the door, blocked by a sheet of yellow flame.
Then the rats began to climb.
They got on one another’s shoulders first, piling up around the base of the scaffold column. Foot by foot, the rats rose higher, and the packed mass of them began to burn. Flames licked up the side of the scaffold as the first rats got a handhold in the lower branches and began to make their way up slowly.
Marcus, horrified by the way this was going and unable to see a way out, climbed up further until he found himself standing on a flat platform of black iron at the top of the steel scaffolding tree. The tree was full of the rats now, all making their way up toward him, their emotionless eyes fixed on him. A glance to the left and right showed him that the corpses in the adjacent trees had also opened their eyes and mouths and raised their hands to point at him. Their mouths were moving, and though he couldn’t hear them over the sound of the hissing rats, he could guess the word they were repeating.
The first rat made it to the platform, and Marcus cut it down. Two more were pulling themselves up. He cut them both down as well. But as they fell, three more were gaining on the platform. These three fell to his blade, but the last one managed to cut him with the trident. Red-hot metal punched through his leather britches and seared his thigh before the rat fell.
That hurt. Marcus could have done with some cool water to bathe the burn in.
Water.
Cool water.
The new water power!
As he dispatched four more ratmen from the edge of the platform, it struck him as strange. It must have been a property of the magic. As he had stepped into the chamber, the idea of using his new water affinity had been foremost in his mind, but as soon as he’d stepped in, all thought of it had gone out of his mind!
Tricks, he thought. This dungeon plays tricks, and that’s one of them. It made me forget my new power. Damn, it nearly got me killed!
The platform he stood on was warming up, and he suspected that the combined heat of the piled ratmen would begin to buckle the iron base soon. He twirled and slashed at the face of a ratman who had gained the platform. His enemy fell back silently, tumbling down through the metal branches.
“Water!” he shouted, and the new power welled up inside him like water from a spring. Water bubbled up and overflowed from his hands. At first, it splashed down from his hands and forearms like water pouring from a jug. It hissed on the hot metal of his platform, then flowed off to pour into the faces of the ratmen.
The ratmen that the water touched hissed and went out, like water being poured onto embers. Steam rushed up from them, and they seemed to go limp and break up as the water soaked into their hands and faces. They tumbled, formless, back to the ground.
“Water!” Marcus cried again, drawing on the wells of power he felt flowing up from inside him. This time, the water began to dump from all around him as if he himself were the spring. It gushed from every side, cascading off the platform and down into the burning heap of ratmen. A great steam rose up all around him, temporarily blinding him. There was a commotion below, and he saw the rats pressing backward, but there was nowhere to go.
“Water!” he roared, and the dam broke. A sudden tidal wave of water exploded all around him, expanding in a widening circle from his body. As he dropped his sword and raised his hands, it rose like a tornado, swirling all around him in an ever-faster vortex. The water whirled in a great wall around him. He raised it, held it for a moment, and then exploded it outward from where he stood.
Rats screamed and hissed and went out. Steam filled the huge chamber. The massive bonfires wavered, and Marcus turned his attention to them. He focused all his new-found power on them, pointing both his hands at one of them. This time, jets of high-pressure water blasted from his hands and smashed the first bonfire to pieces.
He turned his power on the second one, and then the third. When the jets of water hit them, flaming wood scattered in every direction, hissing and extinguishing as it landed in the foot of water that now covered the entire floor of the chamber.
When the last one went out, a profound silence descended on the dungeon. It was dark. Marcus, able to see well despite the darkness thanks to his enhanced vision, looked around the devastation. He allowed the power of water to ebb within him, and found his breath. His heart was racing, but he had done it. Against all odds, he had cleared the chamber of enemies.
Slowly, he climbed down the black iron tree. The corpses on the other tree had fallen silent again and hung limp in their chains. Whatever horrible magic had animated them was gone.
Marcus’s boots splashed into two feet of water, coated by a thick layer of sodden, floating lumps of charred wood. The whole chamber was flooded, and stank of the sharp, bitter smell of doused embers. Over at the doorway, the sheet of flame covering the entrance was gone.
Resolutely, Marcus picked his sword up from the ground where it had landed as the power had swelled through him. He sheathed his sword and began to splash across the chamber toward the doorway.
Chapter 16
“What happened?” said Ella as soon as she saw Marcus.
He must have looked a mess, because she immediately flew over to him, her green-skinned face and massive eyes full of concern. He looked down at himself. His britches were torn where the ratman had got a hit in with a burning trident, and the wound throbbed dully. He was drenched through, and from the waist down, he was caked with wet ashes where he’d waded across the flooded chamber.
“It was horrible,” he said. “Not like anything I’ve seen in a dungeon before. Like a nightmare. I barely survived.”
He walked toward th
e campfire and told Ella about the ordeal. When he was done, they were both sitting by the fire. Marcus had taken his wet clothes off and hung them by the fire. Dressed in his old linen shirt and britches, warm by the fire, he felt better. He sipped a mug of beer.
Ella shook her head. “Corpse magic,” she said. “You put the corpses of the ratmen in the dungeon, and that seems to have had a profoundly evil effect on the chamber. I said that corpse magic could be dangerous, but I didn’t fully appreciate just how dangerous it could get. The Pestilence element that we saw when we examined the dungeon element slots—I wondered what that was, but I never would have thought that it would have been like that. It’s become a Cursed Dungeon. I’ve heard of such things. They were rare, but not unheard of.”
“And what do you think about the water element magic that I gained from the potion?”
“Can you do it again now?” she asked.
Marcus lifted his hands. “Water,” he said. Beads of moisture appeared on his palms, and then small runnels of water flowed down his fingers to drip to the ground. He reached for more power, but it didn’t seem to be there.
She shook her head. “I’ve heard of such things, though it’s rare. A dungeon master can be granted an extremely powerful elemental affinity for a short while, but it only lasts at full strength within that one dungeon run.”
“But now, I can still do it, it’s just… well, it’s just not very powerful!”
“You’ve gained the seed of the ability, and you won’t lose that, but it will take a lot of practice to bring it up to the level of a true elemental mage. You’ve had a taste of the true power of elemental magic within the dungeon, but now you’ll need to build it from the ground up if you want to experience that again.”
Marcus nodded thoughtfully, remembering the immense power he’d experienced within the dungeon.
And then, for the first time, the status of the new water spell appeared. It was unlike any spell status he’d seen before. Instead of referring to a spell, it referred to an Elemental ability, and instead of having a number to denote the level, the level had a name.
