Sweat pooled on his forehead. His arm ached, and he felt a tremendous burning on his calf when a beetle bit him. The dungeon echoed with shouts, squeals, the whoosh of spells.
Then, as suddenly as the battle had started, it was over.
The beetles lay dead on the floor, their shells carved open. The stone troll was scattered in pieces. The frog lay lifeless on top of the bard.
The barbarian’s face was a mess now. Bruised, bloodied, his nose broken. And he hadn’t been much of a looker in the first place.
“Check them for loot,” the barbarian said, sounding like he had a clothes peg on his nose. “Mage, can you heal us up?”
“My mana will need to recharge.”
“Fine. Focus on my nose, please. Bard, get to your feet.”
But the bard didn’t move.
“Bard?”
Bill ran over to him. He dragged the dead frog off him, and then he saw the bard properly.
“Oh, gods.”
He was dead. His face pale, neck completely torn open.
“We’ve lost our bard.”
The barbarian picked up a fist-sized chunk of the troll and hurled it at the set of double doors on the far side of the room.
“Damn this place to hell!”
When the stone hit the doors, the strangest thing happened.
Both doors suddenly formed faces. One was a fat lion, the other a monkey.
The lion yawned. “Ah, time to work. Fine. Solve my riddle, so you may pass. You carry it when you travel, and it does not get wet. What is it?”
The monkey shook his head. “Idiot. You didn’t listen to the Dark Dork, did you? It’s you carry it everywhere you go, and it does not get heavy. What is it?”
Bill and Lisle looked at each other, shocked. They had just battled burning beetles, an overgrown frog, and a troll made from stone, but this…this was surprising. Bill had never seen a talking door before.
“It’s a riddle door,” said the barbarian, sighing. “And we just lost our bard. He was our riddle guy.”
CHAPTER 30
Vedetta began the journey home in the late afternoon. Even though she was, in a way, hundreds of years old, she was also just a little girl. So she stuck to the safer travelers’ road, even though it’d take longer.
She’d had to go to a neighboring village to find the books Tomlin needed, but she didn’t mind. In a way that was surprising even to herself, she had grown to like the kobold, and she looked forward to mining with him again.
She like the core, too. Sure, Beno was a new core, and his greenness shone through. But she could sense potential in him.
His only problem, as she saw it, was that he still held on to a glimmer of his old humanity. He might hide it, he might not even realize he still had it, but it was there. A faint goodness and kindness. It couldn’t have been plainer than in the way he treated his minions. He even called them his clanmates!
She just hoped this humanity wouldn’t get him into trouble, but she guessed he couldn’t help it. Vedetta knew what it was like to have different instincts inside you.
After all, for most of her life, she had been a regular girl. Then, when the witch told her about her past, it was like floodgates opened. She began to remember her life as a core, and some of those core instincts mixed with her own humanity, until she was different. She tried to hide it from her mom and brothers, but it was hard.
That was the contradiction. She remembered her old life, and that wasn’t supposed to happen to cores who earned a second resurrection. She knew what it was like to be a core, and deep inside her, she had a core’s utter ruthlessness.
At the same time, she still felt an overwhelming love for her family, and a desire to fix their problems. To cure her mom, to help her brothers get out of their slumps and pursue their dreams again.
Well, every journey is made up of little steps, one after another. Her father always said that. Now that she’d met Beno and made a deal with him, she at least knew she was heading in the right direction.
After an hour’s walk along the traveler road, it began to get dark. She wasn’t scared, because remembering her core past had removed any concept of fear, but she was still sensible. She knew that dangers lurked on the road, and that she was just a girl and needed to be careful.
That was why, when she heard the sound of raised voices somewhere ahead, she darted into the bushes and hid.
She stayed there for a few minutes, holding her books and her breath, until she realized the voices weren’t going anywhere.
Silently, she crept across the road and up an embankment, and she saw the source of the voices.
A group of people had made camp some way off the road. Men and women, some of them dressed in leather armor, some sitting by whetstones and sharpening their blades.
Heroes? Had Beno opened his dungeon already?
The longer she watched, the more she realized that these people weren’t heroes. She could tell by the things they talked about.
Bandits. These were bandits brazenly camping near the travelers’ road.
Oh well. Not her concern; the guards at the nearby town would get wind of them, and they would come to see them off. The bandits weren’t stupid, and they wouldn’t risk fighting the guards.
She was about to leave when she spotted something that chilled her blood.
It can’t be.
Memories flashed in her mind like lightning. Memories of a horrible day in the years gone by when her brothers had returned without Trevor.
When they’d explained what they’d learned about her father, and how they’d foolishly gone to the bandit camp.
She remembered something Bill had said now. She pictured his watering eyes, heard his shaky voice.
“The leader had a missing leg and a patch over his right eye. He was the one who killed Trevor.”
Vedetta looked at the camp now, her blood cold but her skin burning up with anger.
She stared at the bandits, and at one bandit in particular.
CHAPTER 31
As I watched the heroes wrack their puny minds trying to solve both door riddles, I should have been perfecting my villainous cackle.
I didn’t feel like it, though.
Even though I had already sent the rogue and the bard to the great heroes’ guild in the sky (or do heroes go to one of the hells?) I didn’t feel great.
The Whistling Gary Cavern of Fight Kill had taken its first casualties, and it hit me in my non-existent gut.
I had always, always known that the monsters I created would meet their end at a hero's sword or ranger’s bow. The academy had prepared me for that. As a core, most of my human emotion should have left me by now, anyway.
But here I was, mourning the fate of a bogbadug, stone dwarf troll, and two fire beetles. Mercifully, the fallen beetles weren’t Fight and Kill, my originals.
Even so, watching the creatures die from my core room, I was all too aware of how removed from all of this I was. Sure, I had built this place up from nothing, and that had taken a lot of hard planning, hard work, and hard delegation.
They were the ones who would die for it, though. My clanmates. My beetles, trolls, maybe even my kobolds. They were being spawned into a dungeon where, sooner or later, they were doomed to die.
Wow, I was in a morose mood.
To cheer myself up I cast my core vision to the entrance, where the rogue lay dead in the pit. He was in a weird shape. Sort of like the letter ‘S’ in the way he’d landed in the pitfall. It amused me for some reason.
Next, I swept my vision east, to the scene of the battle where my beautiful bogbadug had killed a bard. Not only that, but he’d smashed his lute. Good on you, bogbadug!
This battle left little opposition for the heroes in the rooms ahead. A few more beetles, some traps. I’d banked most of my firepower in the loot room, where Gary was waiting.
Should I use some essence to create more creatures?
No, I still had this feeling I should hold off until the
final battle. Right now, the hero party was reduced to a barbarian, a mage, and two younger guys.
Gary would tear the recruits’ heads off without blinking. I was worried about the other two, though. Gary’s only support would be four fire beetles, two of which were Fight and Kill, who had leveled up to level four [warriors].
My boss monster would need support, but the timing was crucial.
Here was the thing; when the heroes got through the riddle doors and found the loot room, they would get into battle mode. They would spot the loot chest and their instincts would fire, and they’d be more in the moment than before.
Whereas right now, the idiots were still trying to solve a riddle. They weren’t thinking about fighting.
So, I did something dangerous.
I hopped from my core room, and onto the pedestal in the entrance room.
It’s unbelievably risky for a core to leave his core room when heroes are around. I mean, I’m a gem. People might not realize it because I act so tough, but I’m far, far from indestructible. Just a few swings from a sword and wham! I’m shattered over the floor.
So I felt a little nervous, floating there in the entrance room. I was so close to the heroes I could hear their muttering come through the tunnels ahead.
I had to do this, though. If I created a creature in my core room, his only route to the heroes would be to go to the loot room. My clanmates can’t pedestal-hop like me.
Creating them right here, my creatures would be able to sneak up on the heroes. This was necessary.
Wasting no time, I cycled through my monster list.
Monsters
Spider [Cost 15]
Leech [Cost 15]
Fire beetle [Cost 20]
Kobold [Cost 35]
Angry Elemental Jelly Cube [Cost 75]
Sinister Owl [Cost 120]
Stone Dwarf Troll [Cost 180]
Bogbadug [Cost 200]
Now, I only had 380 essence points, and they wouldn’t re-generate while the heroes were around. I had to use them with all the wisdom of a core.
No point summoning a bogbadug, since I had already seen mine die. Then again, he did kill the bard…
Nah, they’d be prepared for a frog monster now. I needed something new. It didn’t have to be anything too fancy, just a monster that would give them something to think about.
Ah.
Create sinister owl x2
As was standard procedure by now, light spun around blah blah blah until it became two owls. Two rather large owls with beaks that could poke holes in steel, and talons that would shred a stone troll to pieces.
And wow… were indeed sinister. Each of them had one eyebrow raised so that I felt like I was being judged. It was unnerving.
One of them swiveled its head 180- degrees to look at me.
“Right,” I said. “First off, that’s creepy as hell. Cut it out.”
The other did the same head swiveling.
“Situation report,” it said.
“Enemy intelligence. Locations, weaponry, spells,” said the other.
Wow. These guys weren’t messing around. It looked like I had made the right choice.
“We’ve got four heroes currently stumped on two pretty basic riddles. They’re just through that tunnel, in a room before the loot chamber.”
“Spells?”
“A full mage, and someone who looks like a rookie mage. Nothing to worry about.”
“Fire?”
“Yes, they were casting fire.”
“Damn you, Core,” said one owl. “Be more specific with your reports.”
“Now wait a second. This is my dungeon, I am your Dark Lord, and you will not-”
“Orders?”
I sighed. “Go into the next room. Wait until they solve the riddles and open the doors, then attack. I want them to be completely off guard and out of sorts when they run into the core room.”
“Do you give us permission to peck to kill?”
“Of course.”
One owl nodded at the other. “Orders given. Execute.”
And then the two of them flapped away, and I have to admit, it was a minute or two before I could process what the hell I had just heard.
It was only when the sounds of screaming came from the room nearby that I pulled myself together. Feeling vulnerable again, I hopped back to my core room to watch the fun.
CHAPTER 32
The barbarian paced backward and forwards, muttering to himself. The mage kept stroking the goatee beard on his chin, repeating the riddle out loud. The two doors, meanwhile, were falling asleep.
“These guys are idiots,” Lisle told Bill.
“That’d make me an idiot, too. I can’t think of the answer.”
“You’re not an idiot, you just don’t have a head for this stuff. But these guys…they really are idiots.”
“If you know the answer, just say it. Sooner we get the loot and leave, the better.”
Lisle patted his older brother on the shoulder. He’d gone through a few different cycles of emotion with Bill. At first, he’d been annoyed that Bill dragged him out to meet a bunch of heroes. Then he’d slowly begun to feel energetic again when the mage taught him new skills.
Then, when they came into this dungeon and the rogue died, Lisle had been pretty annoyed at Bill for dragging them into it. That was about as nice a way as he could put it.
But he understood now. They might die down here, yeah. He and Bill were dying on the surface, though. No motivation, no life. They couldn’t even help their mother.
Bill had saved them, and he’d done it by putting them in their greatest danger since the bandit camp years ago. Now, it was time to move on.
Lisle approached the doors and stared at the bloated lion face. “You carry it everywhere you go, and it does not get heavy. What is it?” he said. “The answer is your name.”
The lion blinked sleepily. “Very well.” He then shut his eyes.
This left the monkey. “Your riddle is-”
There was suddenly a great flapping sound, and then a screech. No…not one screech, but two. The sounds were ear-splitting.
They all turned to see two massive owls swooping into the room, their talons ridiculously sharp, their faces strangely sinister.
The barbarian drew his sword. The mage grew a fireball in his palms. Bill held his sword now, and he watched the owls fly back and forth.
Lisle checked his mana; damn it. Empty. That was the drawback of being an amateur mage.
With a screech, one owl darted at the barbarian. Both the barbarian and mage attacked it, which left them completely open to the strikes of the other owl, which dug the talons on both its feet into the mage’s face.
Lisle watched in horror as he saw a talon pierce the mage’s eye. The mage screamed, but though the sound was somewhat muted by the claws covering his mouth. He ran in circles, desperately hitting the talons dug deep in his cheeks and forehead, but the owl wouldn’t release him.
The barbarian, holding his sword, looked for a way of helping his mage friend without accidentally stabbing him in the neck.
And then the second owl screeched at him, talons bared and ready to rip his face off.
With one swift swipe, the barbarian chopped a talon clean off, sending the bird off balance and into the dungeon wall.
He pointed at Lisle. “Mage boy. Use your little fireballs and get that thing off my friend’s face! Don’t worry, Jeremiah! We’ll get you free.”
Jeremiah? Thought Lisle. I thought you guys don’t use names.
This was worrying. The barbarian was losing it.
Lisle checked his mana and saw he had enough for one fireball. He aimed at the owl on the mage’s face and cast it.
And missed.
The mage, blinded by the bird, ran into a wall and fell. The owl tore at him, and the mage screamed for his mother and his father and his old childhood dog.
In desperation, he grew a fireball in his palms and then cast at toward himself, s
traight at the owl that clung to his cheeks. Its feathers ignited with a whoosh of orange and red, and a burning smell filled the cavern.
Lisle had never before wondered what happens when a mage aims a fire spell at his own face.
It seemed that it was time to find out.
The mage shot to his feet, his hair and face and robes aflame, and he sprinted down the tunnel while screaming for his parents. Just before he reached the riddle doors, Lisle shouted the answer to the monkey door’s riddle, and both doors opened. The mage ran through them.
The burning owl died, and the barbarian finished the other by punching it to the ground and then running it through with his sword.
He wiped the sweat off his forehead and then, without a word, stalked off toward the tunnels and riddle doors.
“Are you okay?” said Bill, putting his arm around Lisle.
It was as if being asked the question made Lisle realize just how shaken he was. Was this what it was like being a mage? He’d imagined a warm college dormitory, roaring fires. Class in the afternoons, reading books in the evenings.
But real mages spent their time in dungeons. Scared, out of mana, getting their face clawed to pieces by owls.
The barbarian walked back into the room now. His expression was scary. Not fear, not sadness. Completely devoid of emotion.
“Press on to the loot room,” he said. “The mage is dead.”
Lisle looked at Bill. His older brother showed a curious mix of fear and courage in his expression. He was proud of him at that moment, and at the same time, he wished he was back home with Vedetta and mother. He wanted to hug his sister and say sorry to her.
The warrior walked to the tunnel ahead of them, and there was nothing Lisle and Bill could do but follow.
Bill walked ahead of Lisle, and they followed a passageway ten feet until it opened out into a wide, oval room. There was a loot chest in the center.
“Holy gods damned hell demons. What is that?” said Bill.
Lisle recoiled when he saw the beast step out of the shadows. It was some kind of spider with slugs for legs, and grey, hard skin. It gazed around the room in eight directions at once.
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