by Dakota Krout
“Not me, I swear!” Dale waved his hand in a dismissive motion, “We have guests, Mages, who are wanting to challenge the dungeon.”
“Please, please, feel free to focus on anything but us.” Dale hacked up a small ball of mucus and dust before rejoining the Mages. “A bit of overkill, wasn’t that?”
“Overkill is the best kind of kill. No chance of retaliation,” the Mage replied in a chilly tone. “How about you go bother Jasper? I think he sees you as a mascot.”
“Don't mind him, boy!” Jasper slapped Dale on the back hard enough to bruise. “He is always shockingly rude.”
Dale winced and not from the slap. “Got a lot of, ah, lightning jokes you are planning to use?”
“You should be amped to hear how many I currently have.” Jasper had a strange gleam in his eyes. Dale shrugged at him; he didn’t understand the joke. He had no knowledge of how electricity worked. “You don’t understand any of these, do you? Re-volt-ing.”
The impromptu team walked down the stairs, entering the labyrinth below. Looking at the four paths they could choose from, they ignored Dale’s suggestion of the earth tunnel, instead walking through the door marked with water. “I haven’t been down this path before! I have no idea what to expect!” Dale tried to reason with the Mages, but they simply shrugged and let him know that, in that case, he was on equal terms with them.
The first dead-end they found annoyed one of the Mages so much that he tried to blast his way through the wall. A bolt of energy equivalent to the one that had destroyed the entire Boss fortification on the previous level left only a fist-sized depression of molten slag in the wall. The defenses here were decidedly more powerful, and the walls were lined with Runes.
Dale grumbled murderous thoughts as the Mages started trying to use Mana for every little issue they encountered. “Just making the dungeon stronger. You’re making my life harder, you useless brain-fried battle maniacs.” He was careful to keep the volume low, but he was still overheard and laughed at. Luckily for Dale, they got serious as watery traps became more prevalent.
“Does this mean we are going the right way?” one of the unnamed Mages asked Dale. There was a Cloud Cat on the ground in front of him, dead but still twitching from all the electricity passing through it. Dale was watching the Cat hungrily, hands almost shaking as he thought about grabbing its Core.
“What? Oh. Um. Usually.” Dale stammered almost incoherently. “The usual theme in here is: if there are more enemies, you are going the right way. If the path becomes more dangerous, you are going the right way. The easy path is almost always a trap.”
Jasper nodded along at the explanation. “Makes sense! Just like in life! If everyone is happy with your decisions, it is because you have done nothing worthy of noticing. If you are working toward a goal, someone, somewhere, will have something negative to say about it.”
“Jasper, stop trying to be all sage and mysterious. When people are sick of you it is usually because you are making an electricity joke for the thousandth time!” The Mage’s comment made Dale chuckle softly. He didn’t want to be too loud and draw disaster down upon them.
The splashing of water around the next bend was enough to make Dale set himself into a combat pose. Cautiously peeking around the bend, he almost fell over as the boisterous Mages causally walked right past him. “Oh, this looks fun! I wonder… anyone want to just bypass this?”
The Mages shrugged, then vanished, reappearing on a platform over a hundred feet away. Since that was where the tunnel curved, it was assumed that they had to get to that point to continue. Upon landing on the platform, they were hit with several tons of pressurized water which sent them spiraling at high speed into the wall where Dale was still taking cover.
The Mages stood up, ugly expressions on their faces and seemed ready to try again. Their clothes were torn, but they seemed entirely unhurt otherwise. Dale quickly coughed and got their attention. “Remember how I am guiding you? If you keep trying to skip challenges, the dungeon will only throw harder ones in your path. While you might not be hurt, you could get trapped here pretty easily.”
“Well, then. Guide us, oh wise ‘city lord’.”
Dale’s face colored a bit. “I’ve been trying. Now, this seems fairly straightforward, which means there is almost surely a hidden layer to it. What should be needed is to redirect those streams of water into the corresponding holes in the wall. That would be a pretty normal dungeon challenge and is a good place to start. We will likely see the actual challenge if we begin there.”
Jasper walked over to one of the streams coming from the ceiling and put his hand in it. Dale’s eye twitched as the Mage put his hand into a stream of water that was cutting into the rock it touched. “Huh, a bit of water pressure. You should probably not touch these, Dale.”
“I wouldn’t have,” Dale ground out through his tightly clenched jaw. “Thank you for finally using my name. I’m betting that there will be a… a lever, a button, or a pressure plate around here. That should let you tilt the stream.”
After a few moments of searching, Jasper lit up. Pointing at a button located between multiple high-pressure streams, he slammed his hand onto it and shouted, “Found one!”
“Don’t press it-” Dale shouted back. Too late. The streams of water around the Mages started rotating but didn’t stop after only a few degrees. Water washed over the offending Mage, and if he didn’t have near immunity to physical damage he would have been sliced into bleeding chunks. His clothes were utterly obliterated, becoming useless tatters in an instant.
“My robe!” Jasper looked mournfully at his now scantily clad body. The volume of his shouting almost made Dale miss a distinctive ticking noise.
“Quiet!” The ticking was more noticeable in the silence but stopped after a few seconds. At the same time, the streams of water returned to their original positions. “That’s it! It’s a timed sequence!”
When all Dale got in reply were blank looks, he cracked his neck and started walking around the area. “There will likely be clues that help us know which buttons to press first, and if we do it in the timeframe allowed, we should be able to move on.” Going over the room carefully, three more buttons were found, as well as illegible words written at odd angles on the wall and ceiling.
“Are those Runes?”
“No, I think they are words. They aren’t any language I’ve seen before, though.”
While the others were inspecting the markings, Jasper got bored and started playing with sparks. Tiny lightning bolts raced between his fingers, and his eyes dilated as he played with them.
“Jasper! Are you listening?” These sharp words from his brother made Jasper lose concentration, and a bit of electricity hit the water. Dale’s muscles seized up and he flopped, twitching, into the water.
“Gah! Grab him before he drowns!” Jasper raced over to the fallen man. “You alright there, Dale? There’s a good lad. Oh…”
“F-fine. I’m fine. Is someone making toast?” Dale’s teeth chattered as he tried to control his randomly shaking limbs.
“I think I found the solution, by the way.” Jasper spoke into the silence. He pointed at Dale, who only looked back in confusion. “Not you. Actually, move. You’re in the way. There! You see!”
The group looked at the water, seeing the reflection of the scrawled text. Read in the water, it was perfectly legible instructions. Sure it waved around a bit, but they were able to understand what it said. Pressing the buttons in the correct order made the ticking sound start again, but the streams of water went into the holes they were supposed to. A loud *thunk* was heard, and they hurried to get around the bend before time ran out. Rushing forward, Dale noticed that the air was getting steamy.
“There might be a Boss ahead,” Dale told the others. Much to his displeasure, they d
idn’t take him seriously.
“Don’t care. Under B-rank it will just die like everything else in here,” Jasper sneered at the weak creatures they had been fighting.
They walked into the steamy room that typically contained Snowball but faced no attack. This was both a relief and a frustration to Dale, as he had no chance to impress upon the Mages that the threats were getting dangerous to their health. They continued on, but Dale slowed as he looked at the stairwell leading down.
“What’s the matter, boy?” The snarky Mage leered at him. “You look like you’re about to piss yer pants. You obviously don’t understand how happy you should be right now.”
Rolling his eyes, Dale cautiously stepped forward. “The next floor houses a Dungeon Boss. We have no information about it. Each team that comes down here to fight fails to come back.”
“Then how do you know it has a big bad Boss in it?”
Dale literally growled at the man. “I hate that question. There is something down there that affects the minds of whoever enters. A Mage scout took a look and was able to give us general information but no details. The generally accepted idea is that after you fight it and win, you will be able to remember information about the creature. There is a monster at least five meters tall and undoubtedly in the B-ranks. The room is filled with fog, and the air is dense enough with a mixture of Essence and Mana that trying to view the Boss with anything but standard vision is useless.”
“Let’s go take a look then!”
“Works for me, sounds fun.”
“Did you not hear what I just said?” Dale barked at the Mages.
“They did.” Jasper chuckled at Dale’s livid expression. “Try to see our point of view though! We just walked through a dungeon without any challenge whatsoever! The water traps notwithstanding. We need to feel the blood race through our bodies! We need to fight!”
~ Chapter Thirty-Five ~
“Turn back!”
“What was that?” Dale was shaking with fear as they continued along the very long tunnel connecting the fourth and fifth floors.
“No idea! Something we haven’t fought before, boys!” Jasper grunted as he tripped over a loose stone. “How fun!”
“Five more minutes!” The rocks whimpered as they passed. “I’m so tired.”
“I just can’t deal with this today! Ugh! I just can’t even!”
“No~o~o! More people are going to die today!”
“Run away! Run away!”
The voices became louder and more numerous as they progressed, the echoes blending with the new shouts. A door came into view, ornate and dangerous looking with a skull embedded in the wall above it. The eyes of the skull were filled with Cores which lit up as they came closer. A beam of light came from the jeweled sockets, creating a flat panel that had words scrawled across it.
“That is new. My understanding was that it was an open tunnel that merged into the Boss room. The door must have been added recently.” Since the others stayed silent, Dale stepped forward and read the words projected in the air. “Total challenges: fourteen groups, seventy people. Additionally, one scout. Total Boss losses: one. Total survivors after fighting: one. Total escapees: one Necromancer, rank C-seven. One scout, rank unknown.”
“Can written words sound annoyed?” Jasper laughed as he looked at the panel with wonder. “It seems quite peeved that a scout poked his head in but didn’t fight! Shall we do our part and make that Boss loss count move to two?” The other Mages seemed to think this was a splendid idea, and the vitriol and curses that Dale spit at them as he was dragged along seemed to have no effect on their good humor.
“Insane Mages, let me go!” Dale shrieked in far too high of a pitch to be taken seriously. “I can’t survive in there!”
Jasper pushed on the ornate door, and it swung open silently. Fog billowed out into the tunnel, hiding their feet, then their knees within moments. When the last person was inside–willing or not–the door swung closed behind them. It sunk into the floor, leaving behind only a smooth, blank wall. “Huh! Looks like the only way backward is forward! No need to keep attempting to escape, Dale. You are in this with us!”
The air trembled as a growl began filling the room. It had such a low pitch that Dale could only feel it in his bones and wasn’t even aware of it for a moment. The sub vocalizations rose into the human range of hearing, but this did less to comfort Dale than the Mages seemed to think it should. For a moment, the fog seemed to clear, and Dale looked into a pair of eyes that had never existed to this point in history. Pupils were dilated, the irises were hexagonal, and the sclera was blacker than the darkness of the room.
Dale’s view was interrupted as an incredibly sharp stinger stopped in front of his nose with a discharge of electricity. There was a *boom* as what turned out to be the Boss’s tail was repulsed by a barrier of energy that had sprung up around the terrified human.
“Nice job on that barrier, brother!” Jasper slapped his comrade. “That could have been dangerous, Dale! You need to learn how to dodge! Good place to learn!”
“Y-you have a barrier around me? Since when?” Dale sputtered, staring at where the black eyes had loomed out of the mists.
“Since we entered the dungeon, of course! You think we are going to let a child run around with us without protection?” Jasper chuckled at the thought. He whipped around faster than Dale could see, swinging his hammer into the stinger that had been darting at him. “Now we are talking! This fluffy little creature might be able to put out some actual damage!”
“Fluffy? It’s scaled! I saw scales! Where was the fluffy? They’re insane! I’m locked in a room with lightning-driven insane people.” Dale’s words were hushed, as he did all he could not to draw attention.
The hammer strike had broken the very tip of the stinger. Not only did this anger the Beast, it also left a trail of acidic poison on the ground. The humans were forced to watch their step even as the stinger was whipping at them at a furious pace.
“Anyone have eyes on the main body of this thing?” Jasper’s stress was beginning to surface; he struggled to speak calmly.
“I got it. Over here.” The deadpan voice could have been describing his morning tea for all the enthusiasm it exuded. The Mage jumped at the fog-coated body, swinging his electrified hammer. Just before his blow landed, the Manticore’s wings snapped open, throwing the Mage across the rooms and blowing the fog away momentarily. The Manticore was revealed in all of its terrifying glory, and its aura was suddenly powerful enough to lock all of Dale’s muscles in place. He found himself unable to move.
The lightning Mages charged the great Beast, and it roared at them in challenge. “Come to me snacks! I hunger for the flesh of the living!”
“It can speak,” Dale whimpered as fog began to cover the battle. As the condensation rolled in, the aura of terror was diffused, the ambient Essence and Mana refracting the otherwise overwhelming power of the Manticore. Dale took a few steps, attempting to walk toward the exit. A particularly powerful hammer blow created a shockwave that revealed the battle, and Dale was again frozen in place. He took the time he couldn’t move to observe the fight, moving each time he was physically able to do so.
The Mages were swinging their hammers, each individual blow having no apparent effect. The huge room-shaking strokes made the fog disperse each time they landed, but the Manticore only chuckled and counterattacked twice as hard. Huge claws wove through the air, and when they landed the affected Mage would be sent spiraling into the wall at bone-shattering speed. They would hop back up and rejoin the fight, but their clothes and armor were being melted away. Thus far, they had been able to avoid the sharp portions of the claws and had not been injected with any poison. It was only a matter of time until they were affected, unless something changed drastically.
Dale kept sprinting and freezing, as if he were in a child's game that he was forced to play. He reached the wall and heard another discharge as the barrier around him deflected a thrust meant
to end his life. He looked back in time to see the Mages each land a simultaneous blow, then slide back a few feet. They raised their hands and lightning arched between them, making an equidistant triangle around the Manticore. It roared in outrage as the Mana in the air transformed to be dominated by an electric affinity. The power surrounding the Boss flashed into the exact spot his opponents had landed their recent blows. The Beast was cooked over the course of a few seconds as lightning continuously flowed into, out of, and around him as the Mages directed their ultimate attack.
Resolving not to go out without inflicting casualties, the Manticore stabbed his broken stinger forward, giving one last scream of rage before falling down, lifeless. The suffocating combined auras of Beast and Mage faded out of existence, and Dale was able to gulp down some fresh air. Fresh being a relative term, as the air was rank with the smell of ozone and overcooked meat. Jasper stepped forward and collected a key that had fallen to the floor, then proceeded to hack away at the Manticore’s skull until it was broken open. Carefully not getting any blood on himself, he extracted the Core and washed it, finally placing it in his bag.
“You want any of this?” Jasper motioned toward the giant Beast. “I’m satisfied with just the Core.” His eye was bleeding, it seemed the stinger had been able to penetrate his defenses while he was focused on the spell work he and his brothers were using.
Dale was stunned at the offer, “Are you certain? That will be worth a fortune!”
“Sure thing, kid. After all, the city basically sacrificed you to the dungeon, you should sell this off and go find a safe place to cultivate for the rest of your life.” Jasper gave Dale a look full of pity and misguided understanding.
“I keep telling you, I’m the city lord!” Dale huffed as his dimensional bag sucked the giant creature into its depths. “Thank you for this, it will be a great tool for research.”
