Dungeon Robotics (Book 7): Collapse

by Matthew Peed

  I landed on a tree and placed my hand on the trunk. When I pulled my hand back up, another sword formed. I tore the remaining tentacles coming at me apart as I slammed into the barrier again, whaling on it until cracks started to form. With the sound of shattering glass, I broke through and landed on the chest of the monster.

  Without hesitation, I stabbed my swords into the chest area repeatedly. Everything came to a stop as the monster started to fall back. With a boom, the monster died and crashed to the ground. I quickly absorbed it before it returned to wherever it came from.

  I stabbed the wooden sword into the ground and let it become a real tree, adding it to the surrounding forest, then sheathed my main sword before landing on the ground to repair all the damage the monster had caused. Trees were broken, and the ground had been torn apart by the weight of the creature.

  I placed my hand on the earth and fixed the damage quick and easily enough, but it was still new growth, not technically the same plants as before. Once all the damage was repaired, I allowed my avatar to fade, then reappear in the mortal Louella’s office. She was always working, so I was keeping an eye on her for Regan until he got back. I wouldn’t want his favorite mortal to have issues while he was gone.

  I was just glad the undead images had stopped appearing a day or two ago. The creatures were still making it into the dungeon somehow, but I was getting closer to the answer with each one I killed. At first, I hadn’t wanted to kill anything in my dungeon but the undead, but one of them had attempted to eat Lena and I couldn’t allow that to pass.

  “Lady Alara, nice of you to visit me today. I’m afraid I can only stay a moment. I have a bit of a situation to the west to deal with,” she said as she took a bite from the plate of food in front of her.

  “Situation?” I asked. Maybe I could help. I was finding that as mortals go, Louella didn’t really feel like one. Maybe it was how much power she unconsciously gave off in her aura, but I just didn’t see her as a mortal sometimes. Lena told me not to tell her that though, as some mortals reacted negatively to hearing something like that.

  “Yes. Thonaca, the kingdom to the west of us, has an army stationed right outside the border wall. They haven’t made any moves yet, but I’m not sure how long that will last. Though, every moment they give us both makes me happy and worries me.”

  “Why both?” I asked. If they were an enemy, why not strike first? Maybe Louella’s people didn’t have enough strength to defeat this Thonaca.

  “Happy, because that gives us more time to prepare. Worried, as they might be up to something. I don’t have a lot of resources that I can use at the moment. Plus, my attention is being split a dozen ways due to these strange monsters that keep popping up around and in town.”

  “Mana does not work . . . on them.”

  “Yeah. You know them?”

  I nodded. “They are appearing . . . in my dungeon . . . Annoying to kill,” I said, wrapping my hand around the handle of my sword.

  “Exactly. I’ve managed to use straight brute force to kill them up until now, but I feel like they are actually getting stronger. If you can believe that,” Louella said, taking a deep breath before standing. “Sorry. I can’t delay.”

  I nodded and watched her go, then looked around but there wasn’t anything for me to really do there now. Plus, Regan’s mortal seemed fine for the moment. I would check up on her later. With a pop, I moved back to my dungeon.

  Since yesterday, the blizzards had stopped across the north. The temperature hadn’t changed and was still cold enough for unprotected and even protected mortals to die in minutes. Regan’s floating city was keeping the area around my dungeon clear, and a surprising number of creatures had made their way to the safety it provided.

  Not having anything else to do, I wandered to the room under my core. The throne I’d been forced to sit in for years at a time still remained there. Something one of my captors apparently thought was ironic, as I was more powerful than all of them but had been forced to serve them. Just the thought of that man made my blood boil.

  Still, I’d improved the room since I was freed. Across the room where I’d first seen him was a statue of Regan. He didn’t know about it, but it was based on the first image he showed me when our minds linked. It was his form as a human.

  An older man around his sixties or seventies, he had a kind and curious smile. Long gray-white hair went to his shoulders. He wore a strange white coat that had several pockets. To be honest, I preferred this form of Regan to the overpowering form he showed everyone else.

  Even his recently created “human” form was lacking something compared to this older form of his. Not that I would ever tell him that. I sat in the throne and just stared at it for a while. I liked to come here to think. Hard to break a habit of several decades. Leaning back, I merely stared into the eyes of the statue.

  Chapter 26

  Rens Wanderer

  The town authorities had me locked up for a good week before they decided to release me. I was initially surprised to find another High Race individual up here, but almost as soon as I walked out of the jail, I walked into three more. Two beastkin and another person who had enough latent power to level a mountain if he wanted to made my skin tingle as they walked by.

  I tried not to stare, but the powerful one appeared to notice me as well, though he didn’t do anything. I nodded to him just so he knew I knew. It was a gamble, but I wasn’t going to show weakness. The man grinned at me in such a way that I shuddered, then moved on with the rest of his group.

  This place was becoming more interesting the longer I spent time here. I’d thought Steel Spire was amazing, but after being in that city, I couldn’t help but compare it to a mold used to mass produce items. This was more like a fully forged sword that had been used for a while. It felt more lived in. I rounded a corner and heard a man shouting in the distance.

  “Calling for volunteers! Her Highness Queen Louella is offering two gold coins a week for anyone that volunteers. As well as a living space above the fortieth floor in the Queen District Complex!”

  The announcement of the gold really didn’t garner much reaction. The second, however, was a completely different story. People immediately paid more attention and looked like they were seriously considering it. Over to the side, I found someone who looked bored enough to answer my question.

  Giving him a simple wave, I said, “Hello, friend. What’s this Queen District Complex?”

  “New to the city?” he asked in a way that I felt was more rhetorical.

  “Yes. This old man heard a lot about this valley and decided to check it out before I died. No real family to hold me back, after all,” I said with a toothy grin while leaning on my staff.

  “I feel ya. I came here almost six months ago. I swear the city changes by the day,” the man said, pulling a pipe from his breast pocket.

  I pulled mine out and held it to him when he lit a match. He grinned and lit mine as well.

  We both took a long drag from them. “So, this Queen District?” I asked.

  “Ah yes. You see, the dungeon host has a bit of a soft spot for the lord of the area. He built her four grand buildings for all the refugees and new people coming to the city. Rumor has it the four buildings alone can house close to five hundred thousand people, comfortably at that.”

  “Rumor?” I asked, taking another drag.

  “Rumor. No one has gone past the thirtieth floor. The first twenty floors or so are communal. Just enough room for everyone to stretch out their legs and get off their feet after a hard day of work. Then you get to the twenty-first floor.” The man whistled and finished with a large smile. “Some of the nicest living accommodations ever seen in either Thonaca or Lecazar—a man could live there easily and never complain.”

  “They are that nice?” I asked with a bit of skepticism.

  “Sure are. That’s not the end of it. They get nicer and larger as you move up the tower. I know a man who knows a man who has a friend that rec
ently managed to move into a room on the twenty-seventh floor. He said he would happily die there. It’s him and his wife, but I heard there was enough room for a few kids.”

  “That is impressive. It sounds like it might be worth it to volunteer, then,” I said, looking about to the announcer. He already had a queue of people that snaked around the corner of the street.

  “Be careful, friend. You just got into town, but Vaihdetta has recently gone to war with the neighboring country, Thonaca. I’m not sure someone as . . . wizened as you should throw what little life you have left away by going to battle.”

  I laughed but nodded at his statement. He had no idea of the power I commanded at my fingertips. I wasn’t sure what level the surface had gotten to, but I knew that I would still be among the strongest on this continent. “Thank you for the warning. I’ll have to find some other way to check out this queenly complex.”

  “Hey, Porter! Get back to work!” a voice yelled from the business we were smoking next to.

  “Well, Porter, thank you for the wonderful conversation,” I said, patting his shoulder as I moved past him.

  “Anything to distract from this job,” he said, then lifted a sack and took off running.

  I had to hold back a laugh as I realized he was a porter and was named Porter. I shook my head to clear the idle thought, then moved on down the street.

  After wandering for a few hours, I came to a walled-off section of the city. Though walled, the traffic didn’t appear restricted. People were flowing in and out without being stopped. I joined the flow to head inside the district.

  Right as I crossed the gate threshold, I blinked and found myself to the side of the gate with a red barrier around me. A man who looked to be made from metal walked over and waved his hand, dismissing the barrier.

  “This area is restricted to residents and military personnel only. Please head to city hall to register if wish to have access.”

  “My apologies, friend. I’m rather new to this city. Could you point me in the correct direction?”

  He pointed behind me, so I turned and saw a castle in the distance. I wouldn’t have been able to see that if it wasn’t for a break between two buildings. I turned back and nodded in thanks before heading that way. The buildings seemed to grow taller the closer to city center I came.

  I made my way toward the castle, then paused as I noticed a barrier surrounding it. I tilted my head, watching as people were entering and exiting it without trouble. I couldn’t gauge the purpose of the barrier if it didn’t keep people out or in. Shrugging, I moved forward.

  Stepping through the barrier, I watched the castle in front of me change. Not the actual structure so much but how it was placed. The castle was floating on a chunk of land that appeared to be held by large chains. I felt a tinge of a headache while looking at all the magic that went into making this almost pointless creation work.

  Not having any real business at the castle, I turned and left. I assumed I likely wouldn’t stay there, as I was on a mission from the council, so I didn’t need to worry about becoming a citizen or acquiring permanent housing. If my mission took longer than I expected it to, then I might have needed to reevaluate that statement, I knew.

  Still, I was no closer to finding out what had caused the massive terraquake. A few people knew it had happened, but all accounts stated that it originated in the north. The north, which was supposedly an undead-infested wasteland. While I was confident in my abilities, I knew not to challenge large numbers of undead without a full force with me.

  Thus, I was currently at an impasse. I wanted to meet this dungeon core, but he had vanished shortly after I arrived at Steel Spire. All my attempts to contact him had ended in failure. I walked over and sat on a bench as I thought about what to do. I really wanted to have another chat with the lord, but it sounded like she was in the middle of a war.

  “Lords and their wars,” I mumbled, leaning back.

  The stench of ozone cause me to jerk up, then a loud crack and a creature appeared out of nowhere. Resembling a large snake, only with three heads and a spike-covered tail, the monster had to have been over thirty meters long with a diameter of a meter or two. The six eyes all looked around as if selecting their lunch.

  “What the hell is a pretakrin doing here?”

  It must have heard me, as all three heads jerked around to face me. Everyone ran for their lives, many of them screaming in the process. I just shook my head, then waved my staff without getting up from the bench. The ground rumbled in front of me as a massive humanoid form rose up. Next to it, a tree quickly grew and then took the form of a buck with very deadly antlers.

  Accepting the challenge, the monster whipped forward. My golem didn’t hesitate and brought its massive arm down on the head that came near it. The buck charged down the street, then turned and angled its head down. With the golem holding the monster in place, the buck was able to pierce the side of the snake easily.

  I held out my staff and created a massive spike of stone above the monster. Pretakrin were tricky, as most would just absorb mana. That limited the schools of magic you could use to kill them. When the spike was nearly six meters tall and thinned to a point, I allowed it to drop. With a boom, the center of the snake was impaled, crushing its heart completely.

  “Three heads. One heart. Too bad, my friend.”

  The pretakrin thrashed for a few more moments before it faded into smoke.

  I dismissed my elementals right as a portal opened near me. The lord of the city walked out and looked around. She saw as my spell faded back to mana though the damage from the short fight was still very much there and turned to regard me. One of the metal men rushed over to her and appeared to explain the situation to her.

  She nodded, then walked over to me. “Thank you. With your help there were no deaths this time,” she said with a small bow that was more of a head bob.

  “My pleasure. Pretakrin can be an annoyance to deal with,” I said, waving her off.

  “Pretakrin?”

  “Nasty sub dimensional beings. Get them all the time down in the Beneath where certain barriers rub a little thin.”

  “Could I buy you a drink?”

  Chapter 27

  Louella

  I sat across from Oparens, or Rens as he liked to go by, in a tavern. I had used a bit of my lord power to clear a section of everybody else, then had my guards put up a barrier so no sound could get out. I wanted this conversation to be private. Mainly because I didn’t know how it would go.

  “So, Sir Rens.”

  “Just Rens,” he said, taking a pull from his pipe.

  “Rens then. You know of these creatures that are plaguing my city?”

  “Indeed. A plague is an adept way to view them. As I mentioned they are from a sub dimensional plane of existence. They like to find cracks and make their way here. I don’t know if there is any fact in this, but I once heard that to them we taste quite unlike anything they have ever eaten.”

  “Why are they so immune to mana?” That was the number one issue I was having when dealing with these creatures. I couldn’t use my magic, and I was literally overflowing with mana thanks to my body.

  “How do I explain this?” Rens said while tapping his chin. He held out his hands at slightly different heights. “We are my left hand, they are my right hand. Because we don’t match up, certain properties of us don’t work on them and vice versa. Thankfully, they still gain a physical form when they go through a crack, or it’d be damn near impossible to deal with them. Though, without a physical form, they likely wouldn’t be able to interact with us.”

  I nodded, understanding his explanation. Regan had a book on it in his library. I could not for the life of me remember what it was called. Some of the words in the English language just didn’t click with me, although I had learned it to read his books.

  “You said they come through cracks, is there any way to seal them or at least find them?” I asked, getting to the heart of the issue. If we a
t least knew where they would appear, I could prepare for them.

  “That, I’m afraid, is a difficult question to answer. Cracks are caused because something is traveling through a nearby dimension. And before you ask, no it’s not your portals. That was sound magic, some of the best I’ve ever seen. It was firmly in this dimension. However, whether whoever built them is the cause or not, I can’t say,” Rens finished with a shrug.

  I thought the problem over. “I have noticed my portal has been more difficult to form lately. Could whatever’s behind the cracks be causing it?”

  “It is very likely. Even us down in Fallen Rose have not managed to fully understand the mechanics behind these creatures. Mainly because even down there they are fairly rare,” Rens explained and took a bite of a sandwich. The quality of said food had drastically improved since Regan’s library had showed many ways to make bread. “I do have to say this is some of the best food I’ve ever partaken of. And I’ve traveled quite a ways.”

  “Glad to hear it.” I leaned back while I sipped my tea. I wasn’t sure how to broach this subject, considering I had just had him locked up for a week. There were just so many powerful players on the board that I had to be careful. He might seem like a nice old man with blueish skin right now, but the scene in the street proved otherwise. He’d taken the thing down in seconds.

  “Child, you do not need to beat around the bush. Ask.”

  I narrowed my eyes at him as he gave me the kind of smug professor look that I’d seen all the damn time at the academy.

  “I have an issue to the west that I’m dealing with,” I started to say.

  “Ah yes, your war.”

  “Yes. I need someone I know who can actually deal with these things to protect my city. I can’t afford to be jumping back and forth if there is a major battle,” I said, looking him straight in the eye.