by Hugo Huesca
Ed shook his head sadly as he drew his sword. Xorander had acted on impulse, too quick for him to react. “Weapons out, everyone, and get some buffs up,” he said, staring at the golem’s head as it rolled to a stop against a table leg.
“What for? It’s dead now,” Xorander said.
At that moment, the golem’s remaining eye lit up. “Credentials unrecognized. Please remain where you are. A security entourage shall come fetch you at once. We at Saint Claire & Tillman hope you enjoyed your visit!” it added before powering off for the last time
“It’s just basic redundancy,” Ed said quietly, speaking to no one in particular. “Hardware’s catastrophic failure sends a damage report. A damage report alerts security.” He made a mental note to replicate something like that in the Haunt using alert spells. Presently, though, he had other concerns.
Something mechanical above them went click, and four human-sized vents in the ceiling opened up with an oily hiss, one of them directly above Ed, who hurried to step away just in time for a burnished, black steel sphere to drop with a heavy thud in the spot he had occupied a second ago. Three more spheres dropped around the offices, leaving dents on the spots where they fell.
“What in the Wetlands?” someone asked.
The spheres began to transform.
If anything at all could be said about the many failed Endeavors along the years, other than the constant loss of life and resources, it was that the spectators enjoyed it.
On the screens, most of the remaining Dungeon Lords and their entourages had run into some nasty sort of trouble.
Fiends clamored as the three Lords of Bones performed an undignified retreat through a field full of altered red grass as tall as their heads. As they went, the Dungeon Lords and their minions pointed at something behind their backs and threw necrotic spells blindly. Every once in a while a minion would disappear from view under the beak of some unseen creature.
Lord Molmeda and Lady Redwood stumbled through a dark, humid service corridor, so cramped that Molmeda had to hunch over as he went. They arrived at a flooded section of the Factory, where black water beckoned them like an enchanted mirror. While the Lords argued about going back or delving into the water, the crowd gasped in anticipation as the pool’s surface bubbled faintly while a pair of obsidian eyes rose for a second and stared hungrily at the unaware Lords.
Saint Claire & Tillman’s automatons towered above the Starevosi Insurgent and his team. Metallic carapaces covered in glyphs shifted clunkily into a shape that resembled giant iron scorpions with glowing red eyes and spear-like stingers growing from their backs. Lord Wraith threw a fireball at one of them as it changed, and glyphs in its armor glowed bright orange when a barrier met the Lord’s spell, both of them neutralizing with a magical surge that blacked out the screen for a few seconds.
People exchanged bets as Lady Vaines and her entourage delved farther and farther up through the Factory, practically melting the defenses, and escaped mutant creatures that rose to challenge them. Argent Planeshifter was the reason for the speedy advance. He couldn’t create a Portal to a place he hadn’t seen, but he could go back, and often did as soon as they hit a dead end, thus saving Vaines much time backtracking or sorting through obstacles that the rest of the Lords had to face head on.
The contest part of the Endeavor was only one of the reasons the crowd enjoyed the events so much. The other was of a bleaker sort. Unsaid. Most if not all the spectators were minions of one Dungeon Lord or another, or had been so at some point in their lives. Most of those Dungeon Lords hadn’t been kind to the inhabitants of their dungeons, and the Lotians knew shrewd ways to abuse the protection the minionship pact provided. There were mercenaries who had lost limbs after failing to perform, or fiends who had been summoned in quick succession right above pits full of water, just so they would experience drowning over and over. They had also fought the Lordship’s enemies while the Lords themselves retreated to safety, manned sacrificial dungeons meant as diversions, and suffered mentally and physically under strange experiments that oftentimes led nowhere.
In short, watching the men and women in the screens suffer and bleed was a cathartic experience. It forced them, for once, to be the ones who fought in the front lines.
Not that it would last forever. Sooner or later someone would get lucky, and the Standard Factory would fall. What would happen after was anyone’s guess. That the other Regents would stand calmly by while one gained more resources than the rest combined was a fool’s hope. No, when Saint Claire & Tillman’s re-opened its gates, chances were it would do so for the last time.
This meant those minions laughing and clapping at the Endeavor Lords’ injuries would do some dying of their own soon enough. They knew it, so they had their fun while it lasted.
Was it unfair? Yes. Against the Regents’ agreements? Certainly. This was the Netherworld.
So far, more than half the crowd believed Vaines would win this time. In the other trials, fights with other Dungeon Lords, betrayals, and the dangers of the Factory had left her alone among the dead bodies, forcing her to retreat as her injuries piled up. This was not the case this time. Perhaps there would be one last confrontation, one last huge fight among Dungeon Lords, right in front of Tillman’s office. Hopefully most of the Lords would die. That would be a fitting end to the last Endeavor.
Wagers exchanged hands. Fiends drank tepid beverages, mercenaries stood uneasily. On the screens, Dungeon Lords fought and died and pushed through the Factory of Nightmares.
With all their gazes set on the current action and on the dangers that yet awaited, no one thought to look behind. No one saw the creatures that spawned from Malikar’s summoning circle and marched like a tidal wave of black ink through the ruined paths the Dungeon Lords had carved for them.
The scorpion’s stinger punched through the solid concrete pillar an inch above Ed’s head. The Dungeon Lord dodged the next attack: this time a pair of serrated steel pincers with red-hot edges. He almost slipped in the blood of one of Xorander’s Rogues, who had been bisected by the same pincers the Dungeon Lord now faced.
Ed stepped back and struck one of the pincers with his flaming sword. The bones in his arm reverberated with the impact. Its enchantments kept his weapon from being ruined by the strike, but the hit itself did no damage.
Shit. He dodged the stinger again, using his advanced reflexes in sporadic bursts. Around him, the others fought the remaining three scorpions as best they could. It wasn’t looking good. A Rogue was down, and one of Steros’ spellcasters had had an arm pierced by a stinger. It must’ve been poisoned, because the Wizard wasn’t moving anymore.
The stinger, which was as long as a spear, flashed at Ed with mechanical precision. The Dungeon Lord rolled away, slid under a table, upturned it in the general direction of the scorpion, then dove behind a column. An instant later, something heavy struck the column and almost crushed Ed, but he was already running away.
Knowing when it was time to run the hell away had saved his life more times than the best talent or the most powerful spell. No shame in a tactical retreat, he thought as he jumped over a collapsed wall and tried to stay out of reach of the scorpion that chased after him with terrifying speed.
Most creatures in Ivalis Online—and in most games, for that matter—had a certain fairness to them, no matter how tough. For example, if a Boss was immune to ice, it was reasonable to expect it wouldn’t also be immune to fire. If a Dungeon Lord was resistant to magic, he was probably just as vulnerable to being hit in the face with something sharp and heavy as anyone else. This was often true in the real Ivalis as well, because experience points were limited and people couldn’t just buy all the talent options available.
Saint Claire and Tillman did not follow basic game-designing precepts for their defenses. Their scorpions’ carapaces were resistant to spells, and being made of metal it wasn’t really useful to strike them with swords, magical or not. Rogues were useless against them, as were Jarlen’s, E
d’s, and Steros’ swords. Xorander’s magic may have overwhelmed the carapaces given enough time, but she seemed too busy not dying to cast multiple spells in a row.
The scorpion stopped for half a second when Ed reached the nearest wall, his eldritch edge sword now the only defense between himself and the deadly construct. “So, about those credentials,” Ed attempted. The creature, though, ignored him. It raised its stinger, aiming straight at his heart. He wondered how many direct hits his armor’s enchantments could survive without burning out.
Ed had to grant it to them—golden-age’s Saint Claire & Tillman had been good at what they did. There was, however, one factor they hadn’t prepared for.
Rolim’s huge, cloaked frame bouldered into the scorpion, mouth open in a silent roar, dropping his human-sized cannon hard squarely across the length of the creature’s body. There was a loud smash like a violent train crash and the scorpion’s legs bent, almost buckling under it. One of its crystal eyes broke, but the other focused squarely on Rolim.
The metal creature forgot all about Ed.
“There we go,” Ed said as the scorpion tried to run Rolim down. The undead man, silent as ever, caught its burning mandibles with his bare hands. Skin sizzled, smoke came out, and man and machine struggled in place, neither yielding. The scorpion’s stinger plunged deep into Rolim’s chest at heart-height, then was yanked out, triumphantly, tip dripping deadly venom.
Rolim didn’t even notice it. For an instant, Ed could’ve sworn the scorpion’s remaining eye glinted with disbelief. It stabbed the undead man, once, twice, all to no avail. The third time, the stinger’s ridged edge caught on Rolim’s cloak and tore it off to reveal dark gray features frozen forever in a rictus of rage and horror, black stitches holding together the work of Lavy’s scalpel; a long mouth sewn shut, needlework pushed to the limit by a powerful jaw to reveal a hint of a dark tongue and yellowed teeth at the front of a black, wet cavern of a mouth.
Everything about Lavy’s monster screamed mindless undead. Except the eyes. The eyes were unlike Jarlen’s, even. They were clear of the milky-white substance that veiled the Nightshade’s gaze. There was intelligence in those eyes, and rage, and hatred, and all of it was focused squarely on the scorpion in front of him.
Both combatants were locked in a stalemate, neither of them able to best the other. So Ed activated his ancient lord aura, which boosted his minions’ physical stats. A normal zombie wouldn’t have counted as a minion—it was technically the same thing as the scorpion, only powered by the necrotic energies released upon death. Rolim, however, wasn’t a mindless zombie, and the difference Ed’s aura made was instantaneous.
Dead muscles bulged, uncaring of being pushed past the limits of a living human. Rolim tensed his back, then lifted, not unlike a wrestler about to perform a chokehold. Slowly, the easily quarter-ton scorpion rose, its many legs leaving the ground and kicking frantically as it tried to pry its mandibles away from Rolim’s hold.
Rolim bent back and lifted the scorpion all the way from the ground. With a soundless scream, the undead man turned, legs bent with perfect martial posture at the same time it twisted its waist and shoulders into a judo-like throw. The scorpion flew across the air and crashed hard against a wall. The wall collapsed on top of it as well as a section of the ceiling, leaving only its metallic legs kicking frantically at the air.
Calmly, the undead man strolled to the ruin and knelt as he pushed a boulder aside. Then he slowly began to rip pieces off the scorpion and toss them away one by one.
“Kharon’s ass,” Ed cursed quietly, both awed and horrified as he watched Rolim go to town on the defenseless scorpion. Its severed stinger flew past the Dungeon Lord only a few feet away from him. “Well done, Lavy.”
“You’re damn right about that,” a Witch said, many miles below, watching her creation steal the show on every screen while the encampment stood in enraptured silence as Rolim decommissioned the scorpion.
The fight raged on. Lady Xorander floated a few inches above the ground while her minions kept the second scorpion away. Arcane thunder cracked around the Lady’s extended arms as her Evil Eye flared, and the energy traveled through her body in a hot cruel flash that revealed the bones underneath her skin. The scorpion resisted the spell at first, its glyphs glowing red, but Xorander kept channeling the spell. One by one the glyphs burned out as the scorpion tried to push past the Dungeon Lady’s minions to bring her down.
Lord Steros fended off the third construct while his spellcasters tried to follow Xorander’s lead, without as much success. The Dungeon Lord’s sword was covered in red flames, and he had managed to take out one of the creature’s forelegs, but in turn he’d received a nasty gash on his shoulder. The scorpion advanced as he gave ground.
Ed was about to go help, but then he saw Mohnuran and Maser dealing on their own with the last scorpion, whose carapace sizzled as if covered in boiling oil. The minotaur was somehow half-riding the thing, while holding on to the stinger for dear life. Right, he has twenty ranks in Brawn, Ed recalled as the scorpion failed to tear its stinger away from Mohnuran’s hold.
But the minotaur wouldn’t last forever, and if he fell Ed’s backup plan to deal with Vaines would go down the drain. He turned to Rolim. “Go help Steros!” he ordered, and then rushed to Mohnuran’s aid.
He started running without a clear idea what he’d do to the scorpion other than yell at it, but advanced reflexes was especially handy in giving a man a second or two to think in situations where only the chaos of battle would otherwise be found. Most of his spells wouldn’t work against the thing’s magic-resistant carapace, but the armor didn’t cover everything…
Maser threw a bottle at the creature’s mouth, which instantly began to smolder. Acid. Useful if it could get to the insides, Ed decided. It did piss off the scorpion, though, and it forgot about its rider for a moment and tried to run the Spymaster down, mandibles extended.
At that moment, Ed dove for the thing, advanced reflexes at full strength. He landed atop the creature’s foreleg, then jumped right above its face.
“Break!” he exclaimed, swiping at the creature’s face as he passed it by. Break was a utility spell at best, meant to destroy fragile, inanimate objects like windows or panels, and he had learned it to handle the small parts of doors’ locking mechanisms just in case he was ever without a handy Rogue. The spell pulsed from his fingers and into the crystal eyes of the scorpion. They exploded outward immediately, showering Ed with glass fragments, which exploded in tiny arcane bolts like pale blue fireflies as his enchantments protected his body.
Ed fell, rolled away, then hit his back against a wall, driving the wind out of his lungs. He jumped to his feet, sword in hand. The scorpion dashed randomly, now blind, striking at phantom enemies. Mohnuran barely held on to the stinger, the poisoned edge far too close to the minotaur’s exposed neck for Ed’s liking. “Get out of there!” he ordered, for he could see the minion’s hold slipping.
The former bandit didn’t need to hear it twice. He jumped to the side, pushing the stinger as far away as he could. As Mohnuran retreated, Xorander and Steros’ spellcasters came in from behind and unloaded spell after spell on the scorpion’s barrier. The glyphs went down one by one. The creature tried to rush the mages, but then Rolim jumped in, and that was that.
Ed lowered his sword and took a deep breath. He took a measure of the battle. The scorpions were down, but a Rogue was dead, and those were worth their weight in gold inside the trapped factory. Steros had gotten nicked, but his Ranger minion was already administering an antidote plaster on his Lord’s shoulder. Xorander and the rest of the spellcasters had spent a few spells from their daily allotment, but everyone had enough runes to go around.
“Not bad,” Jarlen said, walking next to Ed. She had stayed put during the battle, which irked the Dungeon Lord. “To be honest, I expected more out of Saint Claire & Tillman.”
“And what were you doing, exactly?” Ed asked, eyes narrowed.
&n
bsp; She shrugged. “What was I to do, bite them?” she asked innocently. Then she glanced at the bisected Rogue covered by Maser’s cloak. “Speaking of, shall I raise him? The process takes a day, but we don’t know how long we’ll be in here. He may yet be useful.”
Ed raised an eyebrow, almost speechless at the vampire’s coldness. However, before he could chide the creature, Xorander reached them.
“In fact,” said the Dungeon Lady, “I was about to suggest the same thing. We cannot afford to lose minions to mindless automatons. Get him back up, Nightshade, and see if you can speed the transformation.”
It seemed that the dead minion’s opinions mattered not one bit. The decision was rendered moot, however, because Jarlen never had time to transform the dead Rogue. The vents in the ceiling opened again, six of them this time, one right above Ed and Jarlen. He was fast enough to step away in time, but she wasn’t. Six steel spheres, same as the others, tumbled down an instant later with a loud crash.
Mist poured out of the sphere that had crushed the Nightshade. She reformed a second later as the scorpions transformed.
“Lord Wright!” Steros called, keeping his composure better than his minions. “Now would be the time for one of your famous plans, if you have one.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Ed saw the first steel stinger loom above them. He smiled confidently at Lord Steros. “As it happens, I do have such a thing,” he said.
He was halfway past the scorpions when he turned back over his shoulders at the few minions who hadn’t yet followed his example. “What are you doing, you idiots?” he exclaimed at them. “Fucking run!”
“Well, look at him go.” The crowd watched as Dungeon Lord Edward Wright put some distance between himself and the seemingly never-ending tide of scorpions. “Nice rhythm for someone in armor,” someone commented.
“Maybe, but that’s not going to earn him many points with the crowd.”