“That is all, master,” the small Demon said finally. We had used about four minutes.
“Good, any of the spells they gathered look like they will work?”
“No, though they are close to a breakthrough it seems.”
“Okay, good. You guys have any questions?”
We shook our heads.
“Okay, Betzits,” Yoh looked back at the Demon with glee, “kill yourself and donate the experience to us.”
“Master, no–”
“Do as I command, minion.”
The Demon screamed its rage loudly as infernal flame swept over his body, and he died again. We received the experience; it was less than we had gotten the first time, but it was something we needed desperately.
“Brutal,” I commented. James nodded, and we both smiled—this was the Overlord, a portion of our friend’s personality that peeked out occasionally. Erik usually liked to joke that he would rule the world, and that we would be his vassals. This was him stepping into that role and embracing it.
“Let’s rest for the night then,” I suggested, and we did. They let me sleep through the night, taking turns standing vigil.
After I woke up, I Mental Messaged Balmur, who let us know that they were good and that the night was easy. I informed him that we would be moving on, and he said that they would do the same.
We had a quick bite, then moved on. We fought our way through a few more waves of Rogues and Fighters, stopping for a short, ten-minute rest and to check in with the others, then headed on. We gathered more trash loot, but I left some of the heavier items behind, hoping for better gear later. The morning was looking good so far.
* * *
Eventually, we made our way into a larger chamber with a throne—more like a poorly crafted chair on a mound of rocks, but I’m sure the Goblin King felt important in it.
The head Goblin was a mean looking thing—larger than his kin by at least a foot and broader and fatter than his subjects—but he held a scepter in his hand and had a crown on his head. His sausage fingers clutched the scepter, and it had a couple shiny rings on that looked to not fit too well.
Smaller Goblins ran around, bringing it food and performing little dances for his amusement. Occasionally, he would lash out and smack one with the back of his hand and scream loudly. I saw one Goblin in the corner step out of a puddle to bring him a pitcher. Most of the others in the room were extremely low level compared to him.
“What an asshole,” James whispered. “Level 18. Think we got this?”
“It would be rough even if he was alone,” I said quietly. “He has at least a dozen level 8 Goblins in there with him, and who knows how many in the area.”
“I don’t like it either,” said Yoh. “Look at those guys, though. They’re terrified, man. We go in there blasting, chances are high that they bolt.”
I thought about it some more and couldn’t find the fault in that logic, so we went back to a small cubby in the rock where we could come up with something.
“We need to let the others in on what’s going on,” James advised first.
“Good shit, man.” Yohsuke fist bumped him.
“Balmur, we’ve got a boss over here. Level 18 with a bunch of other level 8 Goblins serving him. They look scared shitless of him. You guy think you’re close?”
“We came upon a few assholes but nothing too extensive. Some kind of storage—they’ve got rancid meat in here. Might be close. Think you guys can hack it until we get there? Or can you wait?”
“Let me ask.”
“They think they may be close,” I relayed. “Think we can hold out until they get here? Or do we want to risk it and see what can be done?”
“It’s risky, even with Bonzer. There’s a lot of them.” Yohsuke scratched his head. “Although, I know we’re some bad motherfuckers, I think we should wait.”
“Yeah, I agree.” James nodded. “Let’s wait it out, and then we go stacked deep and ready to roll.”
I relayed our message to the others and Balmur said that they would hurry. After half an hour of waiting idly, we weren’t expecting the five level 8 Goblins that came wandering into our cubby and caught us by surprise.
We bolted to our feet, and all of them tried to flee back toward the King’s room. Kayda swooped down and latched onto one of the Goblin’s head and began to peck at his eyes. Yohsuke caught one in the spine with an Astral Blade strike that caused it to fall paralyzed and went for another one. James caught one, and I was able to cast an Frozen Dagger at another, but it didn’t stop the fifth one who made it into the room and started screaming at the head Goblin. A couple of strikes, and the four we were able to get were dead.
“Looks like we’re going in hot, now,” I growled, then cast Mental Message, “Beat feet here, guys. We’ve been spotted. Can’t talk.”
We rounded the corner, and they were still listening to the screaming Goblin and weren’t paying attention to us. Looked like the new ring I got would play a large role in what we were about to do. I also went ahead and got a few mana potions ready.
I charged Fireball for five seconds, then unleashed it into the room. At the same time Yoh cast Black Snow and then Star Burst right after. The Fireball collided with the King’s chest and burst out, smacking into a couple of the lesser Goblins around him. The fire, which had been orange and normal before, now looked a little more red and black. That must be the power up from the ring. I downed four of my MP potions and brought myself back up from sixty-five MP after Mental Message and a charged Fireball to two hundred sixty-five MP.
The black cloud that appeared over the now smoldering Goblin King unleashed a large gust of air. Then specks of darkness began to fall down onto the large Goblin. He screeched just before the Star Burst exploded and shot him backward into his people. The thing had so little health now, about forty percent, that we felt confident in our ability to take him out.
The Goblin King raised his scepter, and a black aura surrounded his body. The Goblins around him began to shrivel and cry out. Their bodies became lifeless, and the King stood once more, his HP full.
There were now half the number of Goblins left, and they were clamoring to get out, pulling each other down to get away from their leader to no avail. The King tapped his crown with his scepter, and a red aura shot straight out of it and into the bodies of his remaining subjects. Their bodies crumbled to dust before our eyes, and his body began to grow. His muscles enlarged and thickened. The now-seven-foot-tall Goblin cried out in a deeper voice, and we all got ready for a knock-down, drag-out boss battle.
James was just to the left of the large creature before I could blink. He kicked it in the knee with a Ki empowered strike. The knee buckled a bit, but the King shrugged it off and swiped at the Monk with his scepter in a backhanded swing. The scepter connected with James’s chest and sent him flying back ten feet. His health had dropped a fourth, and it took him a second to get his legs beneath him. He seemed dazed, and that made him an easy target. The King had begun to bear down on him while he had the chance when a blast from Yohsuke took him directly in the head. The Astral Bolt knocked the creature forward, and it stumbled over the kneeling figure before it.
I activated Cleave and then Wind Scythe and sent the axe flying. The attack hit the creature and took ten percent of its health. It was at eight-five percent now, and it seemed angry, yelling loud enough that those of us too close had to cover our ears. More level 8 Goblins streamed in from an entryway off to our left that we hadn’t noticed before. They saw him, then saw us and went on the offensive right away. The newcomers were across the room from us, a good twenty five feet away, when the black aura rippled out again and sucked them dry. The King’s HP was full once more, and we weren’t looking all that great.
I was sitting at full health, and my mana was nearing full, while Yohsuke had full health with almost no mana left after casting his spells and his sword activated. Poor James’s seventy percent health wasn’t reassuring with the way the King was t
ruly hating on him after tripping over him. The Goblin King recovered and started for James once more, raising his scepter like a club.
James recovered enough to stand, and just before the attack landed, I trundled in on all fours in my Dire Bear form. I roared in defiance at the Goblin King and slapped half-heartedly at the scepter raised above his head. The green bastard swung it at my paw, and I shot my head forward and dug my fangs into the creature’s left shoulder. It screamed, and I saw that Yoh had chosen that time to go for his hamstrings. The Goblin King sunk to one knee under my bulk and the damage to his muscles before he screamed again. Once again, three more low level Goblins entered the room.
“Kill them!” Yoh shouted. “We can’t let him heal again!”
James and Yoh bolted for the new Goblins and set about killing them. The aura started to rise off the King’s skin, and I tore into him. I still had my teeth in his shoulder, so I set my jaw and sliced into his exposed chest with my clawed paws. I cut him back down to eighty-five percent including the damage from my friend before the aura shot past me. The King finally managed to slap me with the scepter and dropped me by ten percent. The hit was enough to dislodge my teeth from his shoulder, and I saw his health only go up by five percent. My friends were coming back when the King swung at me full force and cracked me in the ribs on my right side. My health dropped by thirty-five percent, and I entered Feral Rage hard.
I roared at the stupid thing and unleashed hell. I swiped with my left and right paws. When he lifted his ringed hands up to defend itself, I tore into his ribs, and when he dropped them, I tried to bite his stupid head. The King cried out for further aid, a larger group of Goblins answered this time, but the group was met by the two with me.
I was too focused on the reason for my pain. My HP was at half now and dropping slowly. My right side was tight, and I had a broken bone icon and a blood drop next to my HP bar. Oh well. I growled in frustration and focused on the bastard again because the sooner he died, the better.
My friends managed to kill a few of the Goblins but not enough. This time, instead of the black aura, the red aura swept across them, and they ground into dust. The Goblin’s muscles thickened once more, and it swung a ham fist at me that I ducked, but his other hand that held the scepter connected and sent me reeling back. My health bar throbbed crimson at ten percent. I began to feel sluggish and lethargic. I fell onto my backside and watched as the Goblin King whooped in victory. The scepter began to fall, and I almost accepted that I was about to die.
A subject that, surprisingly, none of us had thought of before as deeply as maybe we should have. A hell of a way to go out—this. On my ass in front of a pissant Goblin jacked up on steroids. The scepter dropped and with it, my heart. The great thing collided with the ground, and the Goblin King sat on his ass.
Kayda had swooped down and zapped the monstrous Goblin right on his chest and screeched at him. I had lost sight of her in the fray and then in my frenzy. Luckily for me, she hadn’t done the same. Then came the real cavalry. My rage was gone now; losing my ability to fight had distracted me enough that it had fallen away.
Golden light bathed my body, and my health shot up by one hundred HP and seemed to be regenerating a lot faster than normal. I looked and saw a slight boosted regen next to my HP bar, and the broken bone and blood drop debuff were gone. I turned to see Jaken standing next to me.
“Could you not die?” He smiled and offered me a hand up. “I kind of like having you around, man.”
I smiled and noticed that the rest of my friends had come to our rescue. My HP looked good, so I rejoined the fight. With the party back together, taking the green asshole down was a lot easier. The ranged attackers laid waste to the Goblins the King summoned, while the close-quarters attackers kept him busy. After a few minutes, the King fell to Balmur’s hand axes, and the party had cleared the dungeon. At least, so far as we were aware of.
The King didn’t drop the scepter or the crown, but we got some cash and a few of his rings: a Ring of Storage that allowed someone to cast one spell into the ring to be used by anyone, a Ring of the Ram that threw pure force out to damage an enemy and send them flying, and a Ring of Regeneration that healed five HP per second for a minute at will—that we gave right to Jaken. The storage ring went to Yohsuke, and the ram ring went to Bokaj.
We looted the room as well, gathering coin and even some raw materials that had both Jaken and Balmur almost drooling. Twenty five pounds of mithral ore, one hundred pounds of iron ore, five sapphires, three diamonds, ten opals, one hundred twenty-five platinum, and one hundred gold.
All of us had leveled up. Bokaj leveled up to 15 as well since he had been so close to leveling up again in the first place. Tmont leveled up twice, and Kayda leveled up three times amazingly. I threw the points I could into Intelligence and Constitution—five points in Intelligence and four into Constitution. Her natural points went to Wisdom this time, all three of them. She also had the chance to learn another spell—Lightning Ball. It sent out a small ball of lightning that attached to an enemy and electrocuted them every few seconds. It only lasted for thirty seconds, but it seemed interesting.
A pretty good haul, I thought.
We cleared the room, and I wanted to check the offshoot room I hadn’t seen before, but that was the way that my friends had come. We decided to go back out through our direction, since theirs was still swarmed by large bats that were crazy hard to kill. I supplied that it would be good experience, but they warned me that the fighting took place over a chasm that they had no idea how deep it went. The only reason they had made it before was because there had been a Goblin raiding party trying to clear the bats when they arrived. The Goblins fought both enemies, and the bats focused on the Goblins until they were gone. Didn’t mean they hadn’t fought their fair share, though.
The bats struck quickly and used their echolocation to their advantage; it was horrible. Their equivalent to the Demon fight we had was nightmarish. They had to fight a larger bat with the body of a man, almost like a vampire. The only thing that had saved them was Bokaj’s Ice ability and Balmur’s Shadow Step. When the creature had been about to finish Jaken off, the Ranger froze its leg, and Balmur had Shadow Stepped and leapt onto its back, driving a stalagmite next to the Paladin right up into its heart.
On their way to the King’s throne room, they hadn’t had to fight as many enemies due to them all running here. That was how they had actually found us. Damn good thing they had, too, or I’d be dead.
We made it out of the dungeon without incident. That night we would camp in the forest line, back far enough that we didn’t really have any worries about running into any raiding parties, but it was better to be careful. There was still a few hours of daylight left, so I approached Balmur about a thought I had while we were in the dungeon.
“Hey, brother, you got a minute?”
“Yeah, what’s up?”
“How good are you at making rings?”
“Good enough, I think. What did you have in mind?”
I explained my idea. It was simple, at least from my perspective. I wanted him to create some heavy rings for Kayda to wear or carry while she flies. If it worked, she would gain points in Strength and Dexterity. He took some measurements from her with a string that had some markings on it. I explained how I was also thinking that we might be able to do the same for ourselves, but from the way James had spoken about it, the training took some time.
“I’ll look into it, man. That seems like a pretty awesome idea. You want to let me run with it?”
“Knock yourself out, man. Thanks.”
We spent the rest of the mid-morning journey swapping stories about our time in the dungeon and showing each other some of the abilities we had in our arsenal now. It was a great time.
Balmur showed me his new ring. It was a Blink Ring. It allowed him to use the spell Blink up to three times a day. Blink was kind of like an all-purpose teleport up to sixty feet. It didn’t require mana to power or sh
adows to step through. I had to admit, that seemed pretty damned overpowered.
During a break, Balmur took some ore out of his inventory and had me heat it the way I had when we worked together in the forge. I obliged, and he sat a small anvil on the ground. It was ten inches tall and wide with a horn to bend metal on.
I held the now heated handful of metal out, and the Fire Dwarf pointed to the anvil. I set it down, and he beat the imperfections out of the metal with a small mallet. We repeated the process twice. Then I reheated it and sat it on a dish he set on the anvil. As soon as I did, he snatched out a tool and used it to carve away a portion that he thought was appropriate. Then he rolled the heated metal around on the anvil while tapping on it with his mallet. After a minute, he had me heat it again, then tapped away some more. After a half an hour, the piece began to take shape.
The piece was thick, and from the looks of it, was meant more for function than fashion. Eventually, it began to look like a thick bracelet of grey metal. The thought dawned on me that this wouldn’t fit my familiar, but I let the man work in piece. I provided heat when he needed it, and he kept shaping.
After an hour and a half and another piece of metal, he was done. The finished products, cooled by a jug of oil he had been carrying in his inventory, looked just like I had envisioned. I held them out in my hands and looked at them. They weighed about five pounds apiece. The metal was sturdy and held in place by a clasp.
The weighted rings fit perfectly over a piece of cloth bandage wrapped around Kayda’s legs. She complained that it was heavy but soon realized what I had in mind for her. When I reasoned that she would be able to kill many more Goblins if she was stronger and faster, she took flight. It was awkward, but she soon got used to the weight.
After our rest had finished, we traveled back into the forest for a bit more safety than the cold uncertainty of the underground. It was a great deal easier going back out of the dungeon without having to worry too much about running into more Goblins. The trip back was uneventful, and we made it to the forest line just after night had fallen.
Into the Light (Axe Druid Book 1) Page 20