The Good Guys Chronicles Box Set

by Eric Ugland

  To keep myself from yelling at Donner, I walked the perimeter and poked my head into other openings, all of which lead to visually identical pathways of the labyrinth. I counted eight entrances into the center, but nothing could denote any one from another. In fact, if it wasn’t for the fact that my party stood in front of one of the entrances, I wouldn’t even have been able to pick out where we’d come from.

  I looked at the group, and behind them I could see chunks of stone flying into the air as the world continued to collapse in on itself. I’ll admit, part of me thought things would stop when we got to the center. Or even just slow down. But it appeared the reverse was true. The barrier of destruction closed even faster.

  Jogging over to Nikolai, I noticed the dude was looking like three shades of shit. That last run of ours had really spent him.

  “Thoughts?” I asked.

  “Get the gem,” Nikolai replied.

  “You think it’s as easy as climbing the tower?”

  “I can only hope,” he said, dropping to one knee.

  “Look after him,” I said to Skeld. “Ragnar, with me.”

  We ran to the tower, skidding to a stop at the base. I looked straight up. Climbing it wouldn’t be too bad. Someone chose to do the tower up in a gothic sort of motif, so there were decorative carvings all over the damn place. A quick circle to make sure I hadn’t missed any doors, ladders, or elevators and we were ready to go.

  I pulled my belt a little off and slid the new sword and sheath on. Given the dungeon’s predilections, I figured I needed to be ready with a blade.

  With a quick identify spell, I finally saw what I had:

  The Eternal Xiphos of Sharpness

  Item Type: Rare

  Item Class: One-handed Melee

  Material: Magical Steel

  Damage: 10-20 (Slashing)

  Durability: 18/20

  Weight: 4.8 lbs

  Requirements: Str 12, Dex 12

  Description: A sword having a cruciform hilt with a grip for one-handed use. The blade is narrow at the base and gradually widens into a leaf shape. The Xiphos of Sharpness is able to cut into anything as long as its durability is full. Eternal swords regain durability over time.

  Worked for me.

  “Am I climbing with you?” Ragnar asked.

  “One of us has to get to the top,” I said. “Or everyone dies.”

  He nodded, his face impassive, a rare moment of gravity.

  “To the top,” he said.

  As soon as my hand touched the tower, there was a great grating noise, and the stones beneath our feet started dropping away into nothingness. Well, not quite nothingness, because it wasn’t a complete void beneath us. Dark, yeah, but in the murky depths, I could see the white marble tower extending way, way down. And, worse, I could see monsters already racing up.

  Holding on with one hand, I grabbed Ragnar and chucked him over the yawning chasm, onto the stones beyond.

  He skittered to a stop, than shouted, “You realize the hirð is supposed to be helping you!”

  I winked, and I started climbing.

  The handholds were pretty simple to find and grab, though they were a little ridiculous: outstretched wings, keystones on decorative arches, all kinds of crap the artist probably wouldn’t be thrilled I was mauling. But that ease also applied to the monsters climbing from below. They were making excellent time, and as they got closer to the light, they were terrifying. They seemed to be smaller versions of the clawed crawler from earlier. Big round heads, lots of teeth, a sickly pale pink, long fingers with claws perfect for climbing. One major difference: the arms and the legs of these monsters were identical, in that the legs were basically lower placed arms. So yeah - perfectly suited for climbing. Curiosity got the best of me, so I paused and shot an identification spell back down at them.

  Lesser Rakemaw

  Lvl 12 Monster (Dungeon)

  Rakemaw. Seemed like a perfect name. In the time it took me to identify the assholes, though, they’d gotten to ground level.

  “Shit,” I muttered, and powered up the tower.

  No matter how I tried, I couldn’t seem to get going faster than them, but gauging the height of the tower, I figured I’d be able to keep my lead until I snagged the gem.

  Something smashed me on the shoulder.

  I looked up. Smaller creatures leaned off the top of the tower, whirling slings and launching stones. I was reasonably sure they were goblins, or goblinoids of some variety. And they weren’t shy about expending ammo. Stones showered down on me, slamming into my hands, my head, and my shoulders. The ones that hit my hands were the worst, causing just enough pain for my grip to slip. Which meant the rakemaws were closing.

  Too close.

  One leapt, grabbing onto my foot. The rakemaws were heavy, and all of a sudden, I wasn’t moving nearly as fast. Still, with two hands and one foot, I could remain upward bound

  Twenty feet left to go.

  The next rakemaws to get to me climbed on my back and started pushing off the wall with his feet, trying his damndest to tear me from the wall.

  Then the next.

  And the next.

  Until I was covered, and they started biting into any exposed flesh.

  I couldn’t hold on.

  So I kicked off, grabbing all the rakemaws with me, and fell back towards the ground, hoping I’d get enough horizontal movement to cover the empty space where the rakemaws had climbed from.

  I sailed through the air with all the grace of a pigeon tied to a brick. We landed with a hearty thud and a sickening crunch of the various monsters on my back, those poor bastards’ insides erupting to the outside, kersplooging with force all over Emeline. She was the only one who got mussed over because she was the closest to the tower, shooting arrow after arrow into the mob of goblins at the top. (Moblin?) Unfortunately, now that she was liberally covered in goop, she couldn’t see. And if she couldn’t see, she couldn’t shoot.

  Rolling over to my feet, I stomped one of the rakemaw’s skulls in, and then beheaded the other. Ragnar was there with a spear, stabbing another to death.

  I turned to look at the tower.

  The goblins at the top were jeering at us, making lewd gestures, and attempting to hit us with rocks. Sometimes all of it in that order.

  Rakemaws swarmed the outside, not quite enough to cover all the surfaces of the tower, but enough that climbing it would be nigh on impossible.

  “Thoughts?” I asked Nikolai.

  “No,” Nikolai said, looking away from the tower. “I am currently terrified beyond the capacity for rational thoughts.”

  I turned to follow his gaze.

  The collapse of the labyrinth had gotten to the edge of the circle. In fact, it was a bit false to call the place a labyrinth any longer, given that the entirety of the labyrinth was gone, and what little space we had left was disappearing.

  I looked up at the tower, thinking about my skills, my abilities. I needed to have something magical come to me. And then, well, a really stupid idea came into my head. Gloriously stupid. No way it could go wrong.

  “Ragnar,” I shouted, “time for the hirð to help.”

  Chapter 135

  I grabbed Ragnar by the tail before he had time to object, and I started spinning around like I was doing the hammer throw. I’d never really done a hammer throw before, but I understood the concept of it: generate force, let go at the appropriate point in the circle, thing goes flying in a straight line tangent.

  Ragnar, oddly enough, was not exactly keen on the idea, and let me know by screaming.

  But I was out of ideas and time. So, well, it was this or death.

  Round and round, spinning him as fast as I could, hoping he wouldn’t pass out.

  A quick look at the top of the tower, measuring the target, and most importantly, gauging where I needed to release Ragnar in order for him to avoid the goblins, grab the gem, and make it back down to us on the other side.

  “When I let go— ” I ye
lled.

  “Don’t let go!” Ragnar screamed back.

  “We all run to the other side to catch him,” I continued. “And Ragnar, grab the gem.”

  I released Ragnar, and immediately started sprinting around the tower and the de facto moat, looking over to the side to keep track of Ragnar’s trajectory. I don’t know if it’s because of the points I put into intelligence, but damn if I wasn’t spot on.

  The Lutra sailed through the air, definitely screaming a little more than I would have liked. But he sailed perfectly through the arch with just enough room for him to grab the gem but miss the goblins. Now I just had to put on the jets to make it all the way around in time.

  Perhaps this was a foolish assumption (most assumptions are), but I’d thought the collapse would stop as soon as we grabbed the gem. I thought the rakemaws and goblins would disappear, or de-aggro at least, and we’d have a second to breathe. But instead, the collapse continued on, maybe even a little faster than it had been before. The goblins intensified their stone-throwing efforts, and the rakemaws launched themselves from the tower at all of us, attacking with fervor.

  I had to make a diving catch, laying all the way flat out like I’d never quite managed to pull off in baseball. But I caught my hirðman in something like a diving slide. I immediately shot out my one healing spell to mitigate some of the damage he might have sustained in this nonsense. Then I shoved my hand onto the gem.

  Do you wish to travel to the third floor of The Dungeon of Ancients or do you wish to Exit?

  “TRAVEL TO THREE!” I yelled.

  The ground opened up below me, and I fell.

  Chapter 136

  As it turned out, holes opened under everyone in my party, and we were all falling. Falling that turned into sliding, that wound up with us going through something along the lines of the second-worst waterslide I’d ever ridden. It was leagues better than the poop-chute, but with the lack of water, it was just really smooth stone, and the turns and bumps and everything hurt. There was a bright flash, and then we were falling through open air. Finally, we splashed down in a big lake.

  The water was cold, painful. I had to fight to keep my muscles moving; everything really just wanted to contract. Ragnar had no problems with the water, pushing off me and making his way to my right.

  A notification popped up.

  Congratulations unto you, traveler, for your party has bested the second level of the Dungeon of the Ancients.

  You gain 3000 XP.

  You gain the second ring of the Dungeons of the Ancients Indicium. Complete the Indicium for a bonus.

  Warnings unto you, for each level is more punishing than the last. But the rewards are greater.

  It was dark where we were, and even though it should’ve been instinctual at that point, I panicked, and it took a beat before I remembered I could just flick on the dark vision. The world lit up in contrasting blacks and whites, and I saw that we were in a large cavern with a beach to one side. There was a crude door carved into the wall along the beach, and, as far as I could tell, no other exits. Putting my head under the water, I glanced around, looking for any larger predators. While I could see some smaller fish in the distance, there was nothing like a serpent or a monster or anything particularly nasty. What I did see, however, were several people who didn’t know how to swim.

  “Ragnar,” I called out, “go for Donner. Skeld, Nikolai. I got the girl.”

  “Naturally,” Ragnar called back.

  Ignoring him, I knife-dove under the water and kicked hard. Emeline was sinking like a rock, the ballgown’s heavy silk dragging her down while constrictions around her arms and all the material wrapping around her legs kept her from fighting it.

  I’d never been much of a swimmer during my Earth days, but here, I’d gotten a number of delightful advantages to swimming. I felt like I was straight up shooting through the water, getting deep in mere strokes, and grabbing onto the girl.

  She felt hands on her and fought for a second until she realized it was me. Then she grabbed on. Neither of her reactions were helpful, the first because she managed to smack me right in the nose — probably how she realized it was me — and the second because she trapped my arms to my sides.

  We touched the bottom, so I kicked upward and felt the stunning amount of drag the dress put into the water, and how heavy the damn thing was. I was having a little trouble with the whole mess. So halfway up, I stopped, forced her hands off me, grabbed her bodice with either hand, and pulled as hard as I could. The dress ripped down the middle, and I managed to extricate her from the garment, then pulled her back to me before swimming up to the surface.

  She took in a huge lungful of air as soon as we broke, then started coughing, and promptly threw up on me.

  I ignored it as best I could, rolled onto my back, and leisurely kicked us over to the shore. As soon as my feet touched down, I carried her across the sandy portion of the beach, and laid her on some rocks. Nearer the crude doorway, bricks spread out, as if at some point there was a patio or something along those lines. Unlike the previous floors of the dungeon, however, these bricks weren’t made as well. They weren’t fit together with any sense of smoothness.

  I made a mental note to watch my footing in this next floor.

  Then I trudged back into the water and helped carry Donner up onto the stone, and then Nikolai. We were, once again, together. and everyone was mostly alive.

  “Well,” I said, “that was fun.”

  Ragnar punched me in the face.

  Chapter 137

  “What the fuck, Montana?” Ragnar yelled.

  “HEY!” I shouted right back. “Calm down.”

  “You threw me! By my tail!”

  “It was the only way I could get the requisite speed for that arc. And you totally snagged the gem.”

  “Can you ask first next time?”

  “Did you not see the world crumbling around us? You think there was time to ask?”

  He glared at me, then finally nodded. But just once.

  “Next time,” he said, “ask.” He spun on his heel and walked away.

  He wasn’t wrong. Sure, I should have asked. It would have been much nicer, and he’d probably have been able to prepare more. But we were running out of time, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to deal with convincing him should he say yes. I shrugged, figuring I’d find some way to make it up to him.

  We got some candles out of the bag and had light in a minute. A few bits of broken furniture later, and we had a homely little fire cracklin’ away.

  I walked up to the crude door, and looked it over. It was wooden, with black iron fixtures. The wood wasn’t lined up well, leaving some gaps between the boards. The iron had pits and even a few holes. It certainly didn’t look like anything I’d seen in Osterstadt. It looked almost amateur.

  “We need time to rest,” Nikolai said. “Keep the door closed.”

  I put my hands up and stepped back.

  “No problem, Hoss.”

  He shook his head.

  Emeline stood near the water giving me a dirty look and trying to cover her ample jiggly bits.

  “Sorry about the, uh—” I started.

  “Dress, now,” she glared.

  I reached into the bag, snagged another dress and held it out to Emeline with what I hoped was a nice smile. She snatched the dress and immediately turned around, and walked away to the far side of dry land to get changed. I definitely didn’t not look away and cannot comment on the quality of her butt.

  Then I unsuccessfully tried fishing in the cave pool, and we got a little fire going using some of the busted furniture I’d rescued from the ruined castles. We ate, then slept, then ate more of the dried rations. Once again, I had no concept of the time we’d spent in the safe space, but I had to imagine it was a lot more this time. Somewhere in the neighborhood of six to eight hours.

  I also took the time to catch up on notifications and the like. I had plenty of death notices, from the goblins in the origin
al confrontation, to the creature that fell from the ceiling (known as a liggepalur), to the hobgoblins, and then the labyrinth creatures (the flying one is called the bladed korento). I’d gotten a fair bit of XP, and an additional level.

  Attributes

  Strength: 56

  Agility: 31

  Dexterity: 31

  Constitution: 54

  Wisdom: 24

  Intelligence: 31

  Charisma: 31

  Luck: 31

  Unassigned points: 6

  I poked Nikolai, and indicated I wanted to talk to him with a little privacy. We walked across to the far end of the beach, and he gave me a look like I’d already taken up too much of his time.

  “I got another level,” I said.

  “Allow me to fertilize my fallow field of fucks—” he started, and though I was pretty interested to see where he was going to take that long winded insult, I held up a hand for him to stop.

  “I’m asking you where I should put my points.”

  He closed his eyes, and I swear I could almost feel him metaphysically touching me.

  “Gods,” he said, keeping his eyes closed, “your points are out of control.”

  “Good?”

  “They are unlike many I have seen.”

  “Is that good?”

  “Yes?”

  “I sense a but.”

  “But you are advancing so quickly you do not bother to learn how to use your skills or abilities or even how to capitalize on your attributes. You rely on overpowering everything you come up against. Your fight with the hobgoblins was apocryphal, and had they not underestimated you, you would have died. You slipped by with your health in single digits. At some point, you will find something more powerful than you, and you will have nothing to fall back on.”