by DB King
Marcus visited Jay, who had taken to watching on the outer barricades now, with a sword in his hand and his new, bright eyes watching for threats. Hammer was there too, asleep on a cloak that Jay had brought there as a bed for him. The two had become great friends.
Jay smiled at Marcus. He was looking younger by the day. Gone was any trace of the frail old prophet. In his place now was a hearty warrior in his early fifties, bright-eyes, sun-browned, with a thick mane of wild dark hair and a long, salt-and-pepper beard.
They talked for an hour on the barricade. Marcus brought Jay up to date with everything that had happened. Jay looked pleased when he heard about the new dungeon runners, but he still seemed a bit concerned that the Gutter Gang might not have enough strength to resist the Sewer Slayers and the ratmen when the time came.
“We have thirty-five warriors, and no matter how well they fight, they cannot increase their numbers,” he said. “You will have to use your dungeons to good effect, Marcus.”
“I’m hoping that I’ll be able to guide the enemies into the dungeons,” Marcus said. “It would be much, much better if my dungeon monsters could bear the brunt of the attack, rather than our fighters. It depends on the size of the force they send against us, though. If it’s a large force, I probably won’t be able to lure them all into the dungeons.”
Jay nodded thoughtfully. “If they break through and take this entrance, we’ll have no way out,” he said. “That’s the disadvantage to having such a defensible entrance. There’s only one way in, but there’s also only one way out.”
When a few hours had passed, Marcus returned to the grove. The new dungeon’s gestation phase had completed successfully, and when he cast the spell, the skin of red bricks and green ivy vanished in a gleam of white light, leaving the door open. Beyond, the stairs spiraled downward, but the items he had placed on the top step were completely gone.
Marcus leaned in. “Do you hear that, Ella?” he asked.
She flew up to the entrance and cocked her head, listening. “Yes!” she exclaimed. “I do! It’s the sound of the sea!”
“The salt and the water made a difference to the environment as intended, then!” Marcus said with a smile. “I’m going down to see what’s on offer.”
“Good luck,” she said, smiling proudly at him.
Marcus drew his sword and began to walk down the steps. As always, he was wary of traps, but to his surprise there were none.
That’s strange, he thought. I wonder if that means there are going to be more traps actually in the dungeon chamber itself this time?
The spiral stairway wound down and down, until Marcus felt that he must have descended half a mile. The sound of the sea got louder and louder, and was accompanied by a briny, iodine smell and the cry of gulls. The unmistakable smells and sounds of the shore.
At last, a light shone at the end of the tunnel. A bright, blue light. He came to the base of the steps and looked out. Beyond was a dungeon chamber like nothing he’d ever seen before.
Unlike every other chamber he’d created, this dungeon had manifested as an outdoor area. In front of Marcus was a wide open beach under a blue sky. The shoreline was long and curved, looking out into a bay sheltered by great outthrust cliffs on either side. The sands were yellow and coarse, rising up to grassy dunes backed by dense forest. It looked like a whole world had been created!
Marveling at this new style of dungeon, Marcus stepped out of the doorway onto the sand. There was a loud snap from behind him, and he whirled. He had stepped out of a broken-down beach shack of wooden planks, and the door to the shack had shut firmly.
“Magic,” he said with a smile.
Turning back to the beach, he began to walk. There was no sign of any enemies, but that didn’t mean they weren’t out there. He stepped away from the hut, keeping his eyes peeled. It was warm, the sun shining down from a blue sky dotted with white clouds.
Suddenly, enemies blasted up from the sand, three monstrous creatures that looked like mutated octopuses. Silver veins covered their bulbous red bodies. Their eyes blazed menacingly at him as he stopped in place, holding up his sword.
The creatures had spawned in a line, thirty feet away from where he stood, but they dashed at him on their tentacles. As they approached, he saw that in addition to their eight legs, they each had two arms waving in front of them. They were covered in massive, toothy suckers, but they were tipped with huge, hooked bronze claws.
They made an ugly sucking noise as they approached, and he saw that they had big, beaklike mouths that snapped as they got nearer. At the last moment, he leaped to one side, moving around so that he was not at risk of being surrounded by the three monstrosities.
A quick lunge with his sword scored a long gash across the face of the closest octopus, but as he cut, the monster raised its bladed arms and whipped the massive hooked claws at him with terrifying speed. He dodged one and deflected the other, his blade clanging against the heavy bronze of the creature’s claw.
The other two monsters were moving quickly toward him. He ducked in and stabbed at the closest one even as he circled around to avoid the other two. A sudden thought came to him—he raised a hand and blasted a fat jet of water into the face of the closest one. The water hissed and steamed when it hit the monster’s face. The creature was weakened by the jet of water and retreated, hissing and clawing at its face.
Marcus took his opportunity. He leaped forward, and with a great slash, he cut the monster’s head clean in half. The top half slid off to the side and flopped wetly to the ground, black and red ooze spreading out across the sand.
The other two seemed suddenly unsure. They stopped their advance, and in the moment’s pause, Marcus leaped up into the air, clean over the dead monster.
He landed on the other side of his defeated enemy, and that was when the first trap took effect.
Suddenly, the sand below him began to give way. Where it had been solid a moment before, now it began to bubble and suck at his ankles like tar. He sank to his knees, unable to get free.
The two octopus monsters chittered in malicious pleasure at his predicament, and one of them darted in, aiming a vicious blow at his head with a great bronze talon. But Marcus had not lost his wits, only the use of his feet. He caught the blow, turned it, and took the monster’s talon off on the backstroke.
The bronze talon and a foot of jelly-like tentacle flopped to the sand next to him. He grabbed it as the wounded monster scooted back away from him, hissing and spitting in pain.
Marcus aimed a jet of water at the other octopus, hitting it in the eyes. The monster retreated too, giving him the opportunity he needed to get free. He used the bronze talon, reaching forward and smacking it into the firm sand on the edge of the sinking pit. The claw bit into the sand and held, and with a mighty heave, Marcus hauled himself free.
Hissing in dismay, the wounded octopus led a second charge against him, with its buddy following close behind. Marcus met the wounded one’s charge, catching its blow on his sword and then diving in to swing a fast downward cut at the top of the monster’s head.
The octopus tried to dodge, but it was too slow. The tip of Marcus’s blade caught the creature’s head, cutting through its face. As that one died, the last monster heaved itself backward and retreated from Marcus.
There was a sudden twang from his left. Instinct made Marcus throw himself to the ground. A huge ballista bolt shot through the air, right where his chest had been a moment before.
A glance to the left showed the source of this new menace. Forty feet away, right at the edge of the water, a massive wooden ballista had risen up out of the sand. There were two humanoid figures operating it, but they were silhouetted against the glare of the sea, so he couldn’t see them clearly.
The third octopus charged him as he was distracted by the ballista. Marcus rolled backward out of reach of the claws, and suddenly the realization hit him. The traps! In this new dungeon, the traps were activated when he killed the monsters!
It made total sense—the first monster that he’d killed had died, and immediately a sinking sand pit had appeared where one had not been before. Then he killed the second monster, and immediately the ballista appeared.
What would happen when the third monster died? Only one way to find out.
Instead of attacking with his blade, another idea struck Marcus. He had always used the environment against the monsters in his other dungeons, why not try to do the same in this one?
Smiling, he did a backward roll and got to his feet. The octopus charged at him, but he danced out of the way, positioning himself between the ballista and the octopus. He glanced from side to side, keeping an eye on both the ballista crew and the monstrous octopus. It seemed to take an age for the ballista crew to get their next bolt loaded, but when they did, he was in the perfect position.
He heard the twang of the ballista’s bolt being loosed and flung himself to the side with all his strength. He flew ten feet, landing hard on the sand as the bolt passed through the air where he had just been.
The plan worked perfectly. The massive projectile struck the octopus right in the middle of its face and tore right through it, passing out the other side and sticking upward out of the sand six feet behind the dying monster.
Marcus laughed. He was enjoying himself now.
He turned toward the ballista crew, raising his sword and intending to charge them while they were reloading.
And that was when he saw the ship.
It was coming around the point of the bay. A big, three-masted galley came in hard under full sail. The sleek hull was painted black, and a black flag with a white skull and crossbones whipped in the wind at the top of the main mast.
“A pirate ship!” Marcus chuckled. “These dungeons never cease to surprise me!”
“Fleetfoot!” he cried. The speed spell blazed through him, and he charged toward the ballista, sprinting on his toes across the firm sand as the crew desperately tried to reload and wind the firing mechanism. As he got closer, he could make out their faces. They were blank, but they gleamed with a metallic sheen. The hands, too, gleamed silver in the bright sun.
The silver rings. He had put rings of silver, and the silver chain from the lobster charm, into the dungeon. The silver had evolved into the physique of these crewmen, making men of liquid silver. They were dressed in clothing that looked familiar, though. Their outfits were like those of the common deckhands you might see on any ship, with trousers of loose cotton cut off just below the knee showing silver feet and shins, and baggy linen shirts with blue and red striped patterning.
As Marcus closed on them, the bolt snapped into place, but it was too late for them to bring it to bear. They swept out cutlasses, and Marcus smacked their blades away, ending one with a cut to the neck and the other with a swift stab to the heart. They may have been men made of quicksilver, but they died all the same. Instead of blood, sprays of liquid silver spurted out from their death wounds.
The stuff formed metallic pools on the sand. A few drops of it got on Marcus’s skin, and he hissed in pain. It was hot as molten metal.
The silver men melted away, leaving pools of steaming liquid silver on the sand.
Elemental ability: Water
Current Mastery Level: Novice
Level progress: 4%
Progress to Apprentice level: 7%
Spell: Fleetfoot Level 1
Level Increase: 15%
Progress to next level: 44%
From the bay, Marcus could hear the crew of the ship shouting. They had turned in toward the beach and were hauling in the sails. Banks of oars had appeared on either side of the ship, and now the sharp prow of the vessel was cutting through the water toward the beach.
Chapter 22
On the deck of the ship, even from this distance, Marcus could see the shapes of figures moving back and forth. They looked wrong somehow, monstrous, but he couldn’t make them out. They were coming for him, though, and he had to do as much damage as he could before they landed.
With a powerful heave, Marcus hauled the ballista around so it faced the sea. He had to be careful not to step in the molten silver that had pooled where he’d killed the two ballista crewmen, but the machine was on wheels that had no trouble in the sand, so he maneuvered it easily enough.
A pile of bolts lay next to the ballista. They were huge, four feet of wood tipped with heavy, barbed points made from silver. One had been loaded in already, and Marcus aimed it at the ship. It was a big target, but he wasn’t sure where he should aim the bolt exactly. Then it struck him, and he laughed out loud.
The sailors on board were hauling the mainsail down and coming in under the power of the oars, but a big mass of canvas still hung from the mainmast. Marcus reached into his pocket and pulled out the little flint and tinder box he always carried. Then he grabbed up a handful of the clothing the quicksilver men had worn. The silver substance was drying quickly, and it made the clothes sticky and stiff. It stained his hands, but it was no longer hot.
His Dungeon Master’s Instinct was telling him that the silver stuff would burn. It seemed odd to him that this would be the case, but then he remembered how vulnerable the bladehand had been to fire during his first ever dungeon run. And the octopus monsters seemed surprisingly vulnerable to blasts of fresh water. Perhaps the dungeon denizens were just vulnerable to elemental forces in ways that regular enemies were not?
Marcus wrapped the silver-stained clothing around the point of the ballista bolt and struck a spark to it. It flared up immediately, as if the silver substance had been tar or oil. It burned so fast and hot that Marcus had to step back from it. Without hesitation, he yanked free the lever that held the tightly wound wheel in place. The twisted sinew of the firing mechanism twanged, and the bolt sailed through the air with a satisfying whoosh, trailing bright yellow flames behind it as it went.
Laughing maniacally with enjoyment, Marcus grabbed a second bolt before the first one had even hit its target. He slammed it into place and wound the firing mechanism back, moving with frantic speed and putting all his magically enhanced strength into it. He considered casting a spell to boost himself further but decided against it. He might have to cast a lot of magic later in this fight, and he didn’t want to tire himself out.
The first bolt hit the folding mainsail, and the whole central mast of the ship went up as if it was soaked in pitch. The flames roared greedily up the sail, and a cloud of thick, black smoke rose up toward the clear blue sky.
Howls of anger and outrage came from the ship, and the rowers redoubled their speed. The galley was low-bottomed, a shallow ship that could be run close up onto the sand for the landing.
He grabbed another handful of silver-soaked clothing and tied it around the end of the bolt, and again struck a spark. This time, all did not go so well. The bundle of soaked linen he’d grabbed was bigger than the first and soaked with more silver than the previous one. When he struck a spark, it exploded.
The blast blinded him momentarily, and when he opened his eyes, he saw that a gobbet of burning silver had dropped to the ground. Instantly, it ignited the puddled silver that was all over the sand. The ballista was suddenly surrounded by leaping flames!
Marcus dived in, kicked the release lever, then leaped back. Flames licked at his clothes. Fire burst out on his hands as the rope released and sent the flaming bolt skyward.
To douse the flames, Marcus plunged his silvered hands into the sand, then grabbed a couple of handfuls of the sand to scrub the burning stuff off them. That worked well enough. There was no major damage done.
The ballista was being consumed in an inferno now, however, and would be no more use to him, so he backed away from it and looked past the heat haze to see what effect his second bolt had taken on the advancing galley.
He grinned when he saw what had happened. The second bolt had stuck into the right-hand side of the galley, and half the ship was now wreathed in a violent blaze. Yells and screams had replaced
the battlecries as the wooden hull finally ground up against the sand in the shallows of the bay.
Figures leaped from all sides, led by one bigger than all the others, a giant creature shaped like a man, but with a lumbering movement that was anything but human. Marcus drew his blade and advanced.
The water foamed around his knees and ankles as he waded out toward the enemies. Twenty small humanoid creatures splashed in the water, dressed in pirate clothing. Against the glare of the sun, Marcus couldn’t see their faces, but they wore black tricorn hats and bandanas on their heads, and colored linen shirts like the silver men who had crewed the ballista.
The water was shallow here, and Marcus was able to turn a little so the sun was no longer shining into his face. The enemies turned with him, advancing through the surf toward him. That was when he finally managed to get a look at their faces.
So that’s where the lobster claw went, he realized.
They were crustaceans, man-shaped abominations with red and yellow and black carapaces of hard shell. Their faces were hideous, like the faces of crabs and lobsters scaled up to the size of men’s faces. Long, wavy feelers groped the air in front of them, and greedy mouthparts slobbered curses at him in a watery language as they advanced.
They had four arms each. Two of the arms had human hands, with five fingers and a thumb made from a jointed shell, like the legs of crabs. But their upper arm pairs were tipped with big claws like lobster pincers, huge scissoring cutters that snapped and clacked in the air above their heads. The humanoid arms were armed with pirate cutlasses and small, round buckler shields, but the lobster claws came down from above. Marcus realized that every enemy would be like fighting two, as he defended against snapping claws from above and cutlass swings from below.
They clustered around their hulking leader. He was twice as tall as the rest of them, and instead of humanoid legs, he scuttled along on a big red shell body like a giant lobster, with six legs in rows of three on either side. He was armed with a net and a trident in his human arms, but he also had two massive lobster claws coming out from low down on his body.
