Unbound Deathlord_Obliteration
Page 20
As a matter of fact, that happened twice to people in the group. If it wasn't for the zombies' icons being visible in my minimap when we merged the chats, two of them would have been gone.
Even flying wasn't a possibility; the stalagmites grew higher and the stalactites grew lower until they met each other in passageways that resembled a honeycomb maze.
I led the way, with Daggers right behind me just in case the zombies decided to try something, and the goblin followed behind her. Bear was at the very end of the line.
Morale was low enough when we entered the maze and after an entire day of that, I told Daggers, Ted and Bear, to stay alert; a riot was likely and as far as I knew, I was the only one with a minimap and a way out of here. I suspected both Bear and Daggers of also having one, but not the others. Therefore, I'd be the main target, even if they didn't want to fight my firebombs.
The value of the minimap in such a situation enlightened me as to the real value of a map in the Underworld. Now it made sense why those in power didn't want people to have maps. If I was the owner of Edward's Castle, for instance, I would also prefer that people found it difficult to get in there without a guide that I approved of.
We didn't camp that night, but took turns logging out while leaving the character following the others. I was the only one who didn't do that, since without me we couldn't move on.
A goblin's stomach, I learned, was almost as terrifying as a zombies'. The little monster had to eat every six hours to avoid death. Yes, if he went a single minute more than six hours without food, he would perish. He told us this, Zenhit told me this, Bear's Destiny Spirit told him this, and Daggers found nothing on the internet that said otherwise.
With ten fish, I had enough to keep him fed for two and a half days. If he died, I'd have to go back and either find a way to get the mud people to provide me with food, and maybe one of them to come with me, or give up and do the side quest the game wanted me to do.
The reason I didn't even try to get in touch with the mud people was because they ignored me when I tried to inform them of the goblin's ploy, and because I wanted to save time. I knew the Underworld and even if they spoke to me, there's no way that they would just have said 'okay, dude, let's go.' Now, that decision wasn't looking as smart as I thought.
However, a day and a half after we left, the 'forest' suddenly gave way to a clearing. There was no forewarning; one second the purple stalagmites looked endless, the next I took a turn and they ended.
In front of us was a huge clearing of barren soil with a huge walled castle at the center. We were only a couple of kilometers away from the castle's walls, but even better was the fact that the purple everything ended abruptly a few steps in front of us.
The white walls were made of what appeared to be lightsteel and so tall that the only reason I knew there was a castle behind them was because of the mark on my map. They were massive, looked solid as hell, and there weren't any doors in sight; I didn't think I was going to conquer that place through here.
Slowly, everyone entered the clearing, and upon seeing the walls they all wore expressions of awe on their faces.
My answer was to sigh and pat the goblin's head. "Your turn. Where's the secret entrance?"
"Here, come!" He replied and began to walk forward way too fast.
I pulled one of his big ears. "Slow down there, champ. Stay at most three paces away from me or I'll kill you." Thankfully, Ted was currently offline and couldn't complain about it.
The goblin obeyed and we had to walk only for about five minutes before something went wrong.
Atop the walls of the castle, someone had appeared. I could barely make out two horns behind the parapet but I bet it was one of the minotaurs who had conquered the castle. It immediately yelled: "Enemy sighted!" Then, it shot an arrow at us.
As I had found in Valia, projectiles were useless against agile fighters unless you used massed fire. The arrow flew true, which was downright impressive at that range, and would have killed the goblin if it wasn't for a throwing knife tossed by Daggers, which hit the arrow mid-air, shattering it.
Surprisingly, Melkier still hadn't called me after I killed him. It made me worried because if he wasn't nearby, I couldn't observe his actions or predict his moves. 'Keep your friends close and your enemies closer' was probably the greatest wisdom ever imparted to me by my parents.
Bear, on the other hand, just leaned against a random rock, crossed his arms, and looked bored. Ted was offline and her character was following Bear, so she just stood there beside him, expressionless.
"Move," I pushed the goblin with my foot.
"Yes, yes," it said with concern and started to walk much faster than before.
Daggers recovered her knife and we followed the goblin.
A few other ineffectual arrows flew our way, but it wasn't until a second minotaur joined the first, that Daggers began to have some issue defending against them. By the time there were five, she was wasting a lot of stamina defending us.
"Are we close?" I asked the goblin when she got to half stamina.
"Yes, great master!" He replied. "The distance us walked again and again!"
It took a moment of serious thought for me to understand what he meant. "Two times the distance we walked?"
"Yes! Yes!" He nodded.
"Damn. Run!" I blinked one of my ten fire morbs out of existence and created a darkness one. Each darkball spell took half a second to form, and thanks to my Energizer trait, I could move three meters while running without disrupting the morb amassing.
While Daggers focused on hitting the arrows that got close, I began to shoot arrows out of the air. That's when the arrows began to change paths mid-air. Apparently, Daggers was too fast for it to work, but the horned assholes thought that would work against me.
It took only a few darkballs to teach then otherwise. No matter how they changed the arrows' paths, I could change my spells' path by a total of two hundred and eighty-eight degrees. Twenty-one points in the Controller trait — both it and the Energizer trait had leveled up a few days ago because they were cores — wasn't too bad.
The arrows kept coming, my spells kept lashing out, and Daggers kept destroying the projectiles that got too close to us. The goblin couldn't move that fast with his short legs and I ended grabbing him. "Tell me where to go!"
"Yes, great master! There!" He pointed the way.
We kept running. The five archers that kept raining arrows down on us eventually became six, then eight, and were now at ten. We couldn't stop all of them and our HP was steadily decreasing. I was about to give up when Daggers suddenly fell into a hole in the ground.
There was no hint that the hole was there. Even for her, it was so sudden that she fell without any chance to react.
"There!" The goblin yelled happily while I was turned to avoid the hole. I struggled to correct my path, which caused me to stumble. I fell hard and rolled before falling into the hole face first.
I hit Daggers on the way down. Like a Hollywood ninja, she had jabbed her blades into the walls of the hole and had been hanging there. Sadly for her, she had the goblin and I to worry about.
She tried to hold, but it did her no good. We fell together for about twenty meters before hitting the ground. Not that big of a fall in a world full of magically enhanced people, but if Daggers hadn't broken my fall, it could have been lethal since I'd fallen head first.
"Shit. Why didn't you tell us t
hat would happen?" I punched the goblin, whom I was still holding in my arms.
"Sorry great master! You asked not!" He replied.
I punched him several more times. "Don't play the smartass with me! Next time something like that happens I'll kill you and go back to get one of your friends to help me!"
"Sorry! Sorry!" He helplessly replied.
My body was sprawled over hers, only our... stomachs were in the other's face. Now, I'm not a prude, but that made me slightly embarrassed and I quickly got up. I mean, it'd be cool if we both were in that position by mutual agreement, but for it to happen the way it did...
Damn, am I blushing?
I should kill her for the nerve of touching me without my orders! The ring thought with my inner voice but by now I was used to ignoring it. Who would have guessed the big bad Fallen was shy?
How long had it been since the last time I blushed? Shit, I had thrown a country into chaos and I was getting flustered over something as silly as this?
And it was in a video-game!
Shit!
I forced myself to focus on the surroundings to distract my mind and realized we were in a long stone corridor. It was narrow, just wide enough for two people to walk side by side, and the ceiling was so low I could almost touch it.
"What's ahead?" I asked the goblin.
"Corridors! A maze! And a door!" He replied.
"Enemies?"
"Many!" He said fearfully.
I punched him. "Say that first next time! What kind of enemies?"
"Spiders, mud people, goblins, elementals! Much kinds! I not know them all, great master."
"Useless little shit. Is it safe here, in this exact place we're now?"
"Yes, great master."
Plus, if we couldn't conquer the castle — which was very likely if the castle walls were any indication —, making the zombies weaker before they hunted me down for failure to pay them was much better for me.
At first I thought that dying for him had been a stupid decision but now I saw it let me get away with a lot. The best way to win stupid people over is by using emotional arguments.
Daggers confirmed everything was clear for some distance ahead and we took our time to heal and replenish our mana and stamina.
I said sincerely.
"Let's go, Daggers," I said as I got up.
"Affirmative." She used the Vanishing skill and turned translucent to me, invisible to anyone with low perception and went ahead.
Putting the goblin down, I slapped his nape. "Remember, no funny business. Go."
"Yes, great master."
And so, we began to explore the secret entrance to Edward's Castle.
17. Plan B
It had been a long time since I had last crouched and crept silently down a long corridor, but now, I was at it again.
Daggers remained invisible at the front, with the goblin pointing the correct way at each intersection. Whenever we took a turn, I would throw a fireball at the stone wall to mark it for the zombies.
The never-ending narrow corridors made me slightly claustrophobic. For the first few minutes we found no monsters whatsoever, but after a turn, we found ourselves facing a centaur.
He was so big he had to keep his head bent low and it still brushed the ceiling. There was no way to go around him since his body was wide enough to block the corridor. The beast was naked; his lower half was horse-like and his upper half was a muscular, tan humanoid so monstrously hairy that it brought to mind a werewolf.
The million-dollar question was, how the hell had he managed to tan in the Underworld?
Bald, with a long beard, and mean-looking, his teeth were wickedly sharp, a common trait in the Underworld races from what I had seen. He was holding a heavy-looking metal spear.
When we appeared, he looked at us silently and we looked back.
"Hello?" I said, and it wasn't the right thing to say. The centaur charged at us.
That was the best tactical call I could make; the monster was simply too big to turn the corner. However, I didn't expect one of the walls around me to liquify and the centaur to charge out of it before it had even melted to the floor!
This would be awesome if I wasn't running for my life!
We kept running. I hoped that he could only do that to a limited number of walls. However, if it came to it, I'd better be prepared to fight. I threw a firebomb just to check how much damage it would deal.
202 fire + 39 burn damage dealt to Centaur (241 total)
It wasn't the max damage the firebomb could deal, so he had about thirty percent resistance to fire damage, possibly to all damage; his skin looked thick.
Worst of all, he didn't act like two hundred and forty-one damage meant anything to him at all.
I ended up carrying the goblin again. After three turns and more walls turning into puddles, he was getting too close and it became clear we had to fight. The zombies were still too far away to be any good, so it would be up to me and Daggers.
I didn't want to waste HP, mana and stamina in the maze if I could help it, but Valia disagreed with my choices.