by Hugo Huesca
They were as big as a tiger, and their attractive human faces were contorted with a blank smile, partly open to reveal teeth that Ed didn’t want anywhere near his body. They came from the direction Ed and Redwood had arrived, cutting the Dungeon Lords’ retreat. There was more than a hundred feet of distance between the beasts and Ed, but they were covering it fast.
Ed did some very fast thinking over the next second, aided by his advanced reflexes. The corridor was a perfect kill-zone, there was nowhere to go but back or forward, and forward was guarded by the bladderwrack monster. There was no way he could get away from the beasts in time.
In fact, the timing of the creatures’ ambush was perfect, which suggested human-level intelligence and not just a predator’s natural instincts. The Dungeon Lord’s Evil Eye was a muted green under the water as he hurried to read their character sheet.
Mutated Lampagos, version 2. Brawn: 19, Agility: 22, Spirit: 5, Endurance: 17, Mind: 7, Charm: 5 Skills: Melee: Advanced II, Survival: Improved IX, Swimming: Improved V. Talents: Envenomed Ichor, Deadly Venom, Armor-Piercing Spikes, Steel Hide, Enhanced Feline Acrobatics, Improved Reflexes.
Things were about to get ugly, Ed realized, as he read the character sheet.
Redwood climbed down next to Ed, followed his gaze, and came to what had to be a similar conclusion; she screamed wordlessly, started climbing frantically forward along the pipeline, and tried to kick Ed off it as she went, following the wise principle that she only needed to outrun him. Her kick caught the Dungeon Lord by surprise, but it was a glancing blow that slid harmlessly off his greaves. The spell she cast next, however, was like a blast of scalding water that hit him square in the chest and broke his hold on the pipe. He began to sink, but then his cursewing lashed out like a whip around the pipe. His familiar wasn’t strong enough to pull Ed alone, but half a second later the Dungeon Lord had already used it to climb back up. He then chased after Redwood.
Although Ed could understand her way of thinking, he still chose to take it personally. Now Redwood wasn’t running from the upgraded lampagos, she was also trying to keep ahead of the angry Dungeon Lord.
As soon as both Dungeon Lords were above the algae field, the bladderwrack’s tentacles sprang to life, reaching for their ankles with the frantic movements of a starved beast. A cold, slimy appendage grasped Ed’s ankle all of a sudden and tried to pull him away from the pipeline—and almost succeeded. Bubbles left Ed’s mouth as he cursed and kicked like a mule, breaking the tentacle’s hold for a second. He raised his legs, and was glad to see he was out of reach of most of the tentacles.
Then the lampagos shot him.
A dozen spikes faster than loose arrows drew their trajectories in the water as they raked Ed’s back. The cursewing tried to swat them away, and many spikes pierced its skin and went through. The water around Ed bubbled with the influx of sudden heat as the magic in his armor deflected most of the shots in a shower of sparks, but some made it through. Ed’s back plate was then defeated by the armor-piercing enhancement of the lampagos, as was the mail underneath, and the spider-silk vest. He was aware, on a metaphysical level, of his Spirit being tested against the strength of the hit. He gritted his teeth. He hadn’t come this far to get defeated by a pair of cats.
There were many reasons why the spikes didn’t manage to pierce his skin: the water slowing them down, his enchantments, his armor, his talents. However, in the end, it came down to pure luck. A die roll Ed wasn’t keen on repeating. He could feel the drops of venom burning his skin like acid.
The lampagos were almost upon him, a pair of black-and-crimson torpedoes full of teeth and claws. Ed did some fast thinking. He let go of the ledge and kicked himself off the wall. The weight of his armor made him drop like a sack of bricks, straight into the grasp of the seaweed creature. Plant-matter tendrils enveloped him, dragged him down. Before seaweed covered his view, he saw one of the lampagos diving straight at him. More tendrils rose and caught the beast, pulling it down by the waist. Bubbles rose as the creature kicked in a frantic, silent roar. The second lampagos kept swimming toward Redwood, its shadow passing above Ed’s head.
A seaweed tendril started to close around Ed’s neck. The Dungeon Lord ignored it for the moment. If the second lampagos killed Redwood, Ed would be trapped between the two of them even if he did manage to get out of the seaweed’s hold. His water-breathing ring wouldn’t last much longer, and he doubted he could hold his breath for longer than the lampagos and their 17 ranks in Endurance. His only option, then, was to find a way to keep Redwood alive.
“Smudge!” he cast, desperately hoping that Objectivity would accept bubbles as the spoken component of the spell.
Ink exploded all around him as if a giant octopus had panicked right under his feet. The world around him went black in all directions.
The tendril around his neck began to squeeze.
Ed stretched his skeletal fingers until they brushed the tentacle holding his wrist and drained an Endurance rank off the monster. It felt vaguely as if his veins were connected to a kale-flavored serum drip. The tendril withered and fell apart, and then Ed reached the one trying to strangle him. He kept draining.
The seaweed monster went ballistic. Something smashed Ed hard against the ground and held him there. He could feel his talents fighting off a gel-like enzyme trying to digest him. Too slow, the Dungeon Lord thought, gritting his teeth as he drained more and more Endurance.
He managed to get enough tentacles off him to stand up. All around him was a pandemonium of crazed tentacles and ink-injected darkness. He had no idea where the two lampagos were, or if Redwood was still alive. He started to walk, ignoring the slaps of the seaweed monster. If a tendril caught him, he drained it until it withered. His own body burned with the stolen energy as his pulse raced. This wasn’t a good thing—the water-breathing ring had to work overtime to feed him extra oxygen. The magic in the ring faded by the second like a battery running out of power. Every “breath” of water he took felt more and more like drowning. He spaced apart each new inhalation for as long as he could.
Soon enough, the monster learned to avoid him. Ed kept his head down and slowly made his way out of the ink cloud. As the darkness parted, he saw beams of light coming from above. The surface was only a few meters away! Behind the Dungeon Lord, the smudge spell dissipated. Lady Redwood came out of the dark cloud, eyes wide with terror, blood oozing from a terrible wound in her arm like a crimson contrail. The second lampagos appeared an instant later, jaws snapping at Redwood’s feet. Its tail and hindlegs were grappled by the seaweed tendrils.
Ed rushed for the surface, painfully aware of how slow his movements were. Goddamn do I hate underwater levels, he thought, trying to drown out his panic with anger. It was like a nightmare where he ran from a monster only to discover he couldn’t move fast enough—he couldn’t move at all, and his lungs burned with the need to breathe and the ring in his finger had died. He couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t move, the world around him was dissolving into black nothingness. He reached up, blindly, desperately, as his brain and lungs screamed silently for oxygen.
The feeling of the water surface breaking around him and cold air rushing into his lungs was pure bliss. His vision went white instead of black, and multi-colored stars danced all around him. He waded out of the pool, coughing dank water. He slipped and fell on his knees, then stood back up and kept moving, aware that the lampagos could be close behind—he wasn’t out of danger yet.
“Let’s never do that again,” he whispered to himself. Alder had once told him he was paranoid for carrying around a water-breathing ring everywhere he went—despite not being anywhere close to a body of water. Ed’s only regret was not being paranoid enough to carry two rings.
He had surfaced in what looked like it was once a mutagen laboratory, still lit by Saint Claire & Tillman’s everlasting torches. Huge, broken crystal tubes, like the one that held Rylan Silverblade back in the Haunt, stood at the center of the place, connected to pipe
s on the ceiling that dripped concentrated mutagen. Thick, purple puddles grew all around the floor. Ed decided to stay well away from them—the last thing he needed at the moment was to sprout a third arm.
There were also signs of a recent fight nearby. Broken scorpion automatons littered the floor, along with a few mauled corpses—no Dungeon Lords that Ed could recognize, though. A stream of maintenance beetles stopped in their tracks for a second, as if shy because Ed was watching them.
Someone emerged from the pool right behind him. Ed drew his sword and turned. Lady Redwood looked even worse for the wear than he did, her soaked hair covering her face and her right arm dangling useless next to her. The limb trailed blood behind the Dungeon Lady as she weakly tried to shamble away from the water.
Ed went to meet her and almost killed her where she stood. Redwood’s gaze lifted to meet his at the last second and he saw the panic in her eyes as well as pain and helplessness. He stayed his sword. She’s been poisoned, he recalled, idly, as he reached for her good arm and helped her out of the pool.
“Can you run?” he asked while she dropped her backpack in a hurry and rummaged through it until she found a wax-sealed potion, which she drank in a single gulp. Then she grabbed another one and downed it as fast as the first.
“No,” she said, grimacing at the taste. She threw the bottles at the water and drew her sword. “Just leave me, Wraith. You know I betrayed you, so no more playing games. I’ll take the lampagos out on my own.”
Ed considered it, then took position next to Redwood. He would’ve liked to think it was because of the nobility of his heart or some such bullshit, but in truth the lampagos creatures had 22 ranks in Agility and he doubted he could outrun them after they had dispatched the Dungeon Lady. Thus, his best shot was to forget her betrayal—for the time being.
“How noble of you,” Redwood said sarcastically, completely misreading his motives. “You should have left, Wraith. Lord Vandran wouldn’t have thought about it twice.”
“And look where it left him,” Ed told her, while keeping an eye on the water. “You need to buff us up, fast.”
She gritted her teeth. “Can’t,” she said. “Poison’s messed me up. The antidote I drank hasn’t taken hold yet.”
Maybe it won’t, Ed thought. Not every antidote worked for all kinds of poison. Unless they brought Redwood to a medic, chances were she wouldn’t last long.
A Dungeon Lord with some experience points under his belt could take a beating. He was as difficult to kill as a cockroach… while at the same time being as vulnerable as anyone else to the kind of threats they faced. On their own and away from their minions, like Ed and Redwood were, their chances of making it out of the Endeavor went way down.
Both Dungeon Lords walked backward, trying to put enough distance between them and the water so Ed could safely use a fireball rune when the lampagos came.
As it turned out, he was looking the wrong way.
The lampagos arrived, black shadows under the waters, which parted softly to reveal two pairs of glimmering cat eyes. Behind them, the bulbous tails slithered out like a pair of snakes. Ed tensed and aimed his rune. At this distance he was sure he could tank the fireball, but Redwood wasn’t doing so peachy.
The creatures froze in place and then, very slowly, swam backward and down, their tails disappearing last of all.
Ed and Redwood exchanged bewildered glances. Had that just happened?
“I guess my luck is beginning to change,” Redwood said, earning a grimace from Ed.
“It is changing all right, Lady Redwood,” a woman said behind them. Ed turned in time to see one of Ryan’s Portals disappear as Lady Vaines and her entire entourage stepped through and fanned out in a semicircle around the pair of isolated Dungeon Lords. “Just not in the direction you thought.” Vaines smiled.
26
Chapter Twenty-Six
Lordship in Flames
As he faced the entirety of Vaines’ team with only a wounded Redwood as backup, Ed couldn’t help but notice that he was now in the same situation that Lord Vandran had been. So this is how it feels, Ed thought. He could sense everyone’s gazes drilling on him. Ryan and Virion stood at Vaines’ side. Ed’s former boss looked every bit as scared as Ed felt—hunched over, eyes darting nervously from Vaines to Ed, teeth gnawing at his lip. Redwood was doing pretty much the same, but looking much worse for the wear. Whatever antidote she had drank, she obviously needed a stronger dose.
“Lady Vaines,” Ed said aloud, trying to keep his voice nonchalant. He held the eldritch fireball rune in one hand, aimed at the Dungeon Lady, although he was aware that any of her spellcasters could block it without issue. It was the principle of the gesture, really. Trying to hold on to as little control of the situation as he could. “Fancy meeting you here. How did you find us?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know,” Vaines sarcastically said. She looked almost bored. If she was pleased with herself, Ed couldn’t tell. “Lord Wright, you are away from your minions and Korghiran’s other champions. You are outplayed and defeated. Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t kill you where you stand.”
Ed raised an eyebrow, thinking fast. Vaines wasn’t kidding, given what he had learned of her during their duel. If the next thing he said didn’t convince her she needed him around for the time being, she would have him killed on the spot. Sweat stung his eye. He blinked, perfectly still otherwise, and tried to clear his head.
“You still need the schematics for the Scrambling Towers,” he told her. “To get them, you need me alive. Otherwise you’re back at square one with the Inquisition and Heiliges.”
Lord Virion stepped forward, eyes glinting, like a lion stalking wounded prey. “My Lady needs only the Factory at her disposal.” He reached for his sword, which prompted Ed to aim the rune at him. “You are irrelevant.”
Vaines raised a hand, and Virion froze at once. “I’ll be the judge of that, Lord Virion,” she said. “An effective Dungeon Lord always has a backup plan. And three Dungeon Lords have better odds at reaching the end of the Factory than two.” Ryan flinched visibly—she hadn’t even bothered to include him in her calculations.
“But you promised—” Virion began.
“You’ll get your chance,” Vaines cut him off again. “I still have a use for him.” With that, Virion stood down, still staring daggers at Ed.
I really need to figure out what the hell I did to him, Ed thought.
“The schematics,” Vaines told Ed. “Or else.”
Ed pointed the rune at his own head. “So you can just kill me after I give them to you? I need some assurances, Vaines. Remember, if I die, the schematics are gone.”
Ryan’s eyes widened.
“You sniveling shit,” Virion said through a snarl. “You wouldn’t dare.”
“That’s irrelevant,” Vaines said. “Lord Wright is cornered. Who knows what he may do if we push him?” She grinned. “Very well. Here are my terms. In exchange for the schematics, let’s make a pact. You shall become my prisoner for the duration of the Endeavor. Follow my orders, don’t try to escape, and I’ll let you live. Not much different from minionship terms, actually.”
Ed had learned enough about the Lordship’s traditions to know that what Vaines had offered was a terrible insult. The Haunt’s relationship with Vandran had nosedived when Ed had proposed even a fair version of Vaines’ pact.
Any Lotian Dungeon Lord would’ve refused. Ed still had the option of just retreating from the Endeavor altogether—giving Vaines’ the schematics in exchange for safe passage out. However, he wasn’t here to make a good impression. He cared not one iota about earning the respect of the Lotians. He was here for the Factory, and the only way he could remain in the game was if he went along with Vaines’ offer. At least that way he could figure out a way to free himself. It was a small chance, but better than zero.
“Very well,” he said, stepping forward and lowering his rune. His Evil Eye blazed green as he willed the schematics to a
ppear in front of him. “I accept your terms.”
Vaines’ Eye activated as well as she received the schematics and the pact between the two was forged. “Welcome aboard, Lord Wright,” she said. “There is only one more thing before we can go on our merry way.” She nodded at Redwood. “My apologies, Lady Redwood, but we don’t have space for two prisoners, and I won’t allow an ally of Dominique Molmeda a chance to regroup with him. As is customary, I’ll have your last words now.”
“What?” Ed blinked in surprise.
At the same time, Redwood raised her hands, which were shaking. “No, please…” she said weakly.
“A fine speech, although a bit overused,” Vaines said calmly. Then, she turned to her spellcasters. “Dispose of Lady Talon Redwood.”
It was over before Ed had time to step between the Wizard’s raised finger and Redwood and use his barrier. The prisoner pact slowed him down, as if invisible chains burdened his legs and arms. He struggled against them while a devastating tongue of flame enveloped Redwood, who was too weak to even attempt to defend herself. She wailed in agony as she disappeared inside the flames. Ed was blinded for a second by the flash of light, but he could feel the heat against his skin all the same.
The screaming stopped after a few seconds.
Kes’ fist came down an inch away from the scrying ball, which showed Ed facing all twelve members of Vaines’ team. “Ancestors take me,” she said. “She has him.”
“How did she even know he’d be there?” Alder asked, eyes wide and not leaving the image in the ball. “Last time she appeared on the public screens she was way further inside the Factory.”
The rest of the Haunt’s command tent was a flurry of frantic activity as everyone tried to come up with a plan on the fly to help their imperiled Dungeon Lord. “Rumor is,” Diviner Pholk said after a few seconds, “Vaines’ casters planted silent alarm spells everywhere they went so she would know if another contender stepped into the area.”