by Taj McCoy El
Margaret growled and tried to kick Grax, but he dodged and sniggered at her. Mayah’s eyes were focused down into the dark depths. Her shadow vision was giving her a few highlights beyond the reach of the light’s visibility. Just little movements in the darkness like a dark shadow swimming through another shadow. The type of thing that would make you think you were seeing things. Except for the noise. Mayah knew something was coming.
“Are we gonna fight or run?”
“Well, now that we know that Mayah won’t DIE… I say we have ourselves a little fun.”
Mayah smirked. “Finally, you said something I can get behind. But there’s also a lot I want to tell you guys—not over a fight.”
Grax deflated
“Really?”
“Yes, really. Now, eyes front.”
Grax turned just as a skeletal foot stepped into the light followed by the rest of its skeletal body. Then three more skeletons stepped over the threshold of light. Then seven more, and then ten. Suddenly the passageway was filled with skeletal bodies in a press so thick that they hid the light from view. The skeletons cast macabre shadows against the ceiling.
“You said you had something to tell us, dear?” Margaret hinted at leaving.
Just one more second Mags. This dungeon is working on different laws than the other ones. I need to see if the mobs can leave the dungeon. After that we port out.”
One of the skeletons must have stepped on the trap trigger because the mouth of the skull rumbled closed removing the skeleton army from view.
“Thank god! Is that what killed you?”
“No, it was something else.”
“Tuh-rash MOOOOOOOOB!!!” Grax sang.
“Shut up cat. Let’s go get ready for our run tomorrow,” Mayah said placing her hand on the portal stone and fading into nothing.
“You can be a real butt, you know that?” Margaret accused.
“Thank you. Thank you,” Grax acknowledged with a few bows.
Margaret snorted and disappeared.
✽✽✽
“A detachment was supposed to get the support unit from techros, port them back, and then make our move on the shamans. That detachment never showed. Now that you’re here we’re awaiting further orders.”
Grimmog barely held his loathing for his new commander at bay. The lieutenant was sitting in Grimmog’s favorite chair with a leg idly thrown over the arm.
Malcipher sighed, "I am that detachment, and the plan will continue as scheduled. Halsh and I will be leaving for the outskirts of Drahtspule in the morning.” Halsh’s eyes flicked to Malcipher, and then forward again, unquestioningly. “When I return, I expect the camp to be ready to move within the hour. Until then triple the security watch.”
“Halsh!” Malcipher boomed.
“Yes, lieutenant.”
“Who would you suggest for security commander?”
“Normally Thybold handles that aspect. With the proper motivation I’m sure he can handle it.”
Thybold nodded his saurian head at Halsh in thanks. He was a dravian lizard man. He stood on two feet, but his body curled over in a question mark shape. He was taut as spring with twin short spears crossed on his back. Malcipher expected him to strike at any moment. His fears were allayed when the commanders had first gathered, and they had all bowed when his tattoo was activated.
They’re at least loyal to Caltura—and by proxy, me.
“Fine. Thybold, triple security. Establish passwords, call signs and any other identifying gestures. Add more night vision troops to the night detail and eliminate as many torches on patrol as possible. Do not give the changelings the passwords to the command area. They are to be sequestered until the new security protocols are established. Do not allow them to find them out. If they do it will be on your head. I suggest you make that clear to your underlings.”
“As a matter of fact, I will task the changelings with breaking your protocol. So, I suggest you make the security tight as a drum.”
“Thybold swallowed hard. Grimmog stood next to him grimacing in distaste.
Malcipher ignored him.
“Now Halsh tell me who should be drilling the troops?”
“Normally the units drill under their own commanders. I would however suggest that you get the units used to drilling together. For that, Nerz would be the perfect candidate. He’s seen more action than all us put together.”
Grimmog began to say something, but Malcipher hushed him with a wave of his hand. He studied the faces of all those in the room.
“Which of you is Nerz?”
Grimmog cleared his throat and spoke again. “Nerz is in the prisoner camp, lieutenant.”
“Such talent being wasted on prisoners? Bring him to me.”
“There is a slight problem.” Grimmog cautioned.
“And that would be?”
“He is not in charge of the prisoner camp. he is a prisoner.”
“For what reason?”
“He’s insubordinate to a fault. He’s even killed his superiors on multiple occasions.”
Malcipher’s smile widened. “Yessssssssss, that sounds interesting. Have him brought to me after you leave.”
“Yes lieutenant,” an abashed Grimmog conceded.
“Now that that’s out of the way, leave me. I need rest.”
The commanders left the tent and Malcipher proceed to snack on the delicacies that Grimmog had left behind with his belongings and tent.
“So, tell me Halsh, why is this Nerz so great?”
“He was my field commander in more than one protracted engagement, Lieutenant—back when there was still discipline in the ranks. Now this is just a mob of bloodthirsty killers.”
“Bloodthirsty killers have their uses.”
“But even more so when they rally behind a strong leader. Nerz isn’t known for being good at social situations but he can fight like a devil and make the hard calls.”
“… interesting.” Malcipher tapped his fingers against the chair.
Fifteen minutes passed when a dark shaggy human in wrist and ankle shackles was pushed into the tent with a guard on each arm. His eyes were a glowing red and his snarling visage was heightened by lower canines that peaked through his tautly drawn mouth. One of the guards handed Malcipher the key. Then Malcipher excused the guards with a perfunctory wave. They quickly turned and left. Nerz just rolled his eyes.
“So, Halsh tells me you like discipline.”
Nerz’s eyes just stared at Malcipher like a piece of poo someone left on his pillow.
Malcipher sat up, dropping both feet to the floor, and stood up to his full height. Nerz’s eyes went to Halsh who was shaking his head in warning.
Malcipher laughed as he leaned over the table with both hands supporting his weight. “So, Halsh is worried about you. Hopefully that should tell you something about the situation and make this easier.” With a sneer on his face he growled, “You WILL submit, or I will force you to submit. Time is of the essence and I will not waste much time before tossing your lifeless body aside.”
Nerz’s eyes piqued at the threat.
The friendly smile returned to Malchipher’s face. His eyes however remained cold like two lumps of coal. “Let us try this again—for the last time.” The threat hung there despite the smile on Malcipher’s face. “To start, tell me, why are you in shackles?”
In a deep growling voice Nerz responded. “We ran across a hive of moon spiders and my commanding officer wanted to send the men into their lair at dusk. I disagreed and it came to blows. Well more like a single blow and my commander was struck dead.”
“And what happened with the raid?”
Nerz spit on the ground. “Grimmog ordered the men in and we lost over one-hundred men in less than an hour. Any idiot should know moon spiders are more lethal at night.” The next morning a full complement went in and cleared out the lair. With only twenty casualties over the course of a day.”
“It seems as if your arguments had some merit. Hav
e you ever sent men on a suicide mission?”
“More times than I wish to count. More often than not those men knew they were being used to save lives. I do not wish to see my comrades fall for the stupidity of an idiot commander. There is no honor in a senseless death.”
“So, if I ordered you to kill Halsh for your freedom would you do it?”
“That ‘d be more loss than gain, so I’d humbly disagree.”
“And by humbly do you mean violently?”
“Most likely. Won’t really know until you take these shackles off and give the order.”
Malcipher looked down at the key in his hand. And moved towards the prisoner.
“That was just me making a joke. Please, don’t put no weight to it.” Nerz squirmed in place.
Malcipher just strode across the tent and roughly took the wrist shackles and unlocked one of them. He then pushed the key into his hand and motioned to Nerz’s ankle shackles and turned away. When he did, he saw a look of fear mostly recede off Halsh’s face and back into hiding behind his collected demeanor.
“So, Nerz, what will it be? Your friend Halsh over here or one hundred men?” Malcipher pulled a dagger out of his belt and threw it at Nerz’s feet. “Think carefully, your answer will determine your own life.”
Nerz slowly picked up the dagger and felt its weight. He looked blankly at Malcipher, and then at Halsh over Malcipher’s shoulder. “If it was a simple numbers game, I would instantly kill Halsh. Halsh is worth maybe seventy foot soldiers with his skills and abilities though. So, if I had to choose, I would choose… YOU!!!”
Nerz leapt across the tent towards Malcipher with his teeth bared. Malcipher made no move to dodge as the knife homed in on his chest. Time slowed as he activated his tattoo and Nerz fell limply to the ground losing the knife to his fall. He tried to rise but only made it as far as one knee. He supported himself with one fist. When Malcipher looked behind him Halsh was in a similar position.
Malcipher closed the gap, picking up his dagger, brushing it off gingerly and squatted down in front of Nerz. Nerz met his eyes with the cold dark fury of a condemned man. Malcipher just cackled and stood up.
“Halsh, you are sure he can drill the units together?”
"I would stake my life on it, lieutenant.”
“You already have.” The tattoo dimmed and Nerz growled.
“You had one chance.” He glared at Nerz. “The next time you disobey my orders I will have you tortured for weeks without letting you die. Even if my orders seem to outweigh the cost of lives you will follow them. This is a war. There are worse things than death and I have seen many of them. Do I make myself clear?”
“Yes, Lieutenant,” he responded dejectedly.
“Come now, don’t be so morose. You saved the lives of one hundred and two men today. And I’m entrusting you save more.”
“One hundred and two?”
“100 men, yourself and Halsh.”
Halsh blanched at the statement, taking half a step back.
“Never forget you live at my wish. If I ever find you un-useful I will end you and groom better candidates. Now go,” he waved the back of his hand at Nerz, “be useful.”
He spun to sit in the seat. He saw the tent flap close. He felt the rictus of pain ripping through his body.
I need the key.
✽✽✽
“Okay guys.” Mayah was sitting next to the fire with her cohorts. Deanna sat in her lap while Riker sat on her shoulder
“Most of the things in the dungeon so far have been shadow based.” Riker chittered and nodded his head in agreement. “So, I’ve come up with some small defensive measures so far and haven’t had a chance to test the whip against the weesps or the undead except for some spider things. Mags you’re going to have to take the lead with your abilities in that respect. You need to get on the forums and find out what you can do with your leveled resurrection doll. Specifically see if you can gain control of the feral undead, we’ll be facing. This should be a great chance to level your skill.
“You,” She pointed to Grax, “We need to give you more crushing damage. Swords are fine and dandy when they can cause injuries to muscles that hamper movement. But those things didn’t have any flesh so with your current setup you’re a little underpowered. We’re gonna need you to do…” Here Mayah paused to sigh defeatedly and said, “your thing,” with air quotes.
Grax looked up from where he lay on his side in the grass. One hand cradling his head and one knee cocked up. The look on his face was as usual, smug. “Yer preaching to the choir sister.”
“Well, any ideas how to do… you?”
"I can’t tell you how I do my thing.”
“Why not?”
“Well, with great power comes great responsibility—I don’t know if you can handle that.”
“Since that just filled out the questionnaire for your presents. I hope you like what you get.”
Grax pushed himself up in a jolt and held out a paw. “Wait! Don’t be so hasty. Geez.”
Deanna who was hungrily eyeing Grax’s swords jumped about a foot in the air and ran into the grass.
Grax could only watch as Mayah visibly calmed and smiled. He realized he’d been played.
“We’re gonna need bigger guns,” he finally said
Margaret just sighed and shook her head.
“Fine, we’ll need slows, AOEs, DOTs, and more trees. Explosions would be good but as we’ve seen there are a lot of bones in there. We’re going to need to control the crowd.”
“Physical snares would work better than magical,” he added.
“My thoughts too. Why waste mana when they have unending stamina. They won’t stop. It would be nice if we could net them and that might be do-able.”
“Nets? Really?”
“Thread of Iron,” Mayah said patting her bag.
“Wait that gives me an idea." Graz hopped to his feet. Can you make whole streamers of threads come out of a grenade?”
Mayah’s eyes went wide. “Knot and tangle?”
Grax nodded. Mayah offered him daps and continued.
“So, thread of iron tangle traps are on the table—still to be designed though. How would you use the trees?” Mayah pressed for more of his information.
“Best case scenario we can bowl trees at them. Worst we use the trees to slow them down and channel them to a focal point so we don’t get swarmed.”
“If they could appear in a manner where we can control the orientation, that would work. But we can’t, so that’s out. But we can still get crushing damage if we throw them into a crowd. We should gather them just in case. And how about if we enchanted some runes along the tree. They would be active when the trees deploy.”
“We can make some fire traps out the vuurm vomit.” Margaret chimed in.
“Gold star for the noob,” Grax yelled.
“She’s growing so quickly,” Mayah gushed. Quickly getting back on topic, she plowed ahead.
“So, tomorrow morning we’ll craft up something for the weesps and we’ll go to Shadow’s sheer shine city tomorrow. Bleh! That is still tough to say. Tomorrow night, we craft for the undead. Figuring out ways for everyone to hit harder physically is gonna be important.”
She pulled out some stilettos and some of her sketches.
“Light enchanted kunais, maybe some nunchaku—mockups for Grax’s reward for saving the dungeon.”
Grax squeed causing Mayah to give him a disdainful look for interrupting her.
“Maybe some type of grenade with light or fire damage. gotta research it first.”
“Nunchaku?” Grax hissed in pleasure, staring into Mayah’s eyes?”
“I’m getting pretty good at making a rope-ish substance. I’m also trying to create self-recharging circuits so you’ll be able to recharge your own gear.”
Grax’s eyes widened even further. “A charged Spike (W) weapon?” his voice trembled.
“You’re making it weird. What, with the drool and all.”
“Because we need to be rested for tomorrow’s dive. And as to why that means going to sleep early. You’ll find out in the morning.” Mayah stood up her arms going akimbo as she stared at her comrades. “Time to get some rest."
They are gonna love the morning announcements. MWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
Day Eleven - An unexpected defense
Invincibility lies in the defense; the possibility of victory in the attack.
- Sun Tzu
11.1 The Awakening
Thrown from his bed, Mo flew into the air and activated speed. the world slowed down. Eyes opening out of reflex were closed tight as fast as he could manage it. Pulling his chin down to his chest and his knees up he rolled into a loose ball to protect himself as he fell.
The spin he was in kept him from locating down. Without any visual references, it was a task almost out of the question. Not knowing how fast he was spinning added to the problem. He did the only thing he knew to do because, the one thing he did know for certain was, the floor. was. coming.
He waited for the faint nagging that told him to dodge. It blossomed out from his right shoulder. From here he knew he was spinning right to left and was turned almost horizontal to the floor, his feet above his head at a thirty-five-degree angle.
Gotta roll with it.
His left hand extended downwards by his right shoulder while his right arm swung out to slap the floor. pulling his legs in and rounding his spine and shoulders he made contact letting his body rotate.
Gonna be on my feet in no time, he thought smugly.
As pride goeth before the fall, the centrifugal forces on his squishy little body forced his arms to collapse instead of doing their intended job. he lost the slim control he had right before his ragdoll roll threw him face first into the wall.
Pushing off he righted himself as quickly as he could and got into his fighting stance. From in front of him he heard Bonkers' voice.
“Well, oi say, that's a moight bett'ah than yesterday. Four point foive out'ter ten.”