by D. R. Rosier
She giggled, “Are you rubbing my baby belly?”
I nodded into her hair, “You caught me. I adore you little imp.”
She pushed back against me, and my manhood was nice and warm, and growing, nestled between her silken and supple bubbled ass cheeks. One day we wouldn’t have to do this in our minds anymore, but for now it was better than nothing. It was also far more intimate in some ways, since our minds were intimately joined. I could feel her pleasure at my words, as I was sure she could feel my sincerity.
We spent time talking about the future, and then made love again before she ended the spell.
When she left for the library, I focused on finalizing my dungeon crystal design for my new avatar. Things were going well and moving relatively quickly for the task in Jennesar. I figured another couple of months and I’d be ready for the final stage of the plan. I wanted to be both prepared and ready for when that happened.
It wasn’t actually that difficult, I’d need to keep the outside the same, with the elemental magic layers and bands for the different magical spheres. I had to look and feel the same, just in case someone that saw me already got another look. The inside of course would be different. A normal dungeon was quite powerful, almost a god in its own dungeon aura. Which meant a normal dungeon crystal would do just fine as an avatar, to hold a smaller part of my essence robust enough to control and maintain the dungeon.
Of course, I’d never seen a real dungeon crystal lattice, so I had to make one up which took a lot of experimentation. It needed to be strong enough to hold my dark essence within, yet porous enough that I could pass magic and life force through it without great effort. In other words, to contain my essence, and not trap it like the prison I was in.
It occurred to me on my sixth attempt, that since my life force isn’t mortal life force, but dark magic essence, perhaps a dungeon crystal wouldn’t work for me after all. Perhaps, I already had the answer, and could just make my avatar core a dark magic elemental crystal. That might be the perfect crystal structure to contain me, and not trap me.
When it was time, it would be simple enough. I’d create it, put part of my essence in it and transfer control of the dungeon as well as the dark magic connections to the large elemental stones buried beneath me. Then all I’d need to do is open a gate to the higher planes, destroy the crystal prison, and get through the gate before my essence dissipated on this plane which couldn’t support it.
After that… well I wasn’t sure yet. Getting revenge wasn’t exactly a detailed plan.
My main focus moved to the dungeon as Ember’s team was back to review my newest floors. I was also nervous as hell, because Donnell had never gotten a reply on his report. A paranoid part of me thought maybe they knew I could read them. But that was crazy, right? The simplest and most obvious answer was they’d decided it was a guild secret and didn’t want to risk word going out with a letter that could be intercepted.
They didn’t skip straight down to twenty-one, even though they could have. I imagined they wanted to verify the first twenty levels hadn’t been changed or modified enough to need an updated rating. It didn’t take all that long for them to get down to level twenty-one anyway, and I found myself making more new bodies for the five dark elves.
The last six levels actually took them three times longer than the first twenty. The master level three through six seemed to at least slow them down a bit. Of course, it also proved they’d managed to move beyond master level five, which mean they’d been modified by some higher being at some point in the past. After they’d taken down the last extremely large golem they walked into the last room.
Ember peered at my crypt, but didn’t approach or remove the lid.
“Well, what do you guys think?”
Ari frowned, “We didn’t face anything strong enough. Donnell’s message indicated the woman’s aura far outstripped master level five, even more than ours do when we let them out.”
Bran cleared his throat, “True, we didn’t find anything, and there’s no way to know what happened. According to Donnell her aura simply disappeared. He also reported several deaths. Is it possible the woman wasn’t stopped at all, and her goal wasn’t to kill the dungeon? Maybe her aura disappeared because she’d done what she came to do, and simply teleported out.”
Ari shook her head, “That’s a possibility, but it seems wrong, too neat. What do you think Ember?”
She sighed, “I agree with you Ari, we’re missing something. But I won’t recommend more than keeping a closer watch on the dungeon, not yet. The dungeon has continued to create good challenges and been consistent with raising the challenge slowly along with its levels. That said, it concerns me how fast the dungeon has grown, it usually takes centuries for a dungeon to gain the knowledge and experience to do so.”
Well damn, I guess most dungeons don’t send their imps on library raids.
Bran shrugged, “It hasn’t broken the rules as far as we know. It hasn’t gone rogue, or turned into a runaway. If its only problem is being too predictable with level ratings, which gives adventurers a better chance and guidelines, I’d say let’s leave it alone. There is no evidence that woman died in here, and there’s no evidence to say what she was after. No one had seen her before, or since, which proves nothing except that we don’t know what happened here. Maybe she just wanted to kill one of the people in the dungeon, and then teleported away once that one died? We don’t have any proof the dungeon killed anyone directly, and if what Donnell said is true, I doubt the dungeon has enough power to do it. Its aura is barely strong enough to maintain the floors it has.”
That was true, because most of my strength was in the large elemental stones which were hidden in enchanted vaults to hide their aura of power. Either way, I hoped Ember would be swayed by Bran.
Ari snorted, “You believe all that?”
Bran responded, “You believe the dungeon is being deceptive and lying?”
Absurdly, I felt guilty at that. I was being deceptive and lying.
Ari sighed at that, “I just don’t buy it, I know it doesn’t make sense, but there’s something going on here. That said, unless it starts killing people or invading the surface, I’m okay with just watching it, for now. But ember is right, it’s grown way too fast to be a normal dungeon. I’m more curious than alarmed about wanting the truth of things here. Honestly, this dungeon is too good to be true, if only they were all so fast to grow, and concerned with stability.”
Ember cleared her throat, “I’m going to advise just that, to bring in a specialized monitoring team to help Donnell keep an eye on it, but you know it’s the guild master that will make the final decision. Let’s get out of here, I’m thirsty. I think I actually broke a sweat this time.”
I sighed in relief as they entered the teleport alcove and left the dungeon, or at least, I did on the inside. I did monitor them in the tavern, but as per usual they didn’t discuss secret guild business in the open. Apparently, I was going to get away with my battle with Tythys, for now anyway. Still, I had a feeling it was just a matter of time before I had to reveal myself. Either by talking, fighting, or retreating…
We exited the portal only fifty yards from the front gates of the smaller city. It was honestly a bit startling that she’d put us so close. We walked forward a few steps, and I dropped a large globe of invulnerability around the rest of the group after they’d come through to both protect them and keep them out of the fight.
There was a loud shout from the walls, and a moment later an even louder war horn blasted out the alarm. I felt a little amusement as the large gates were frantically pushed closed.
Lila asked, “Think they’re afraid of us?” as she launched a fireball at the ballista on the wall directly over the gate.
It exploded and burnt to ash, which killed the two guards manning it as well.
“Maybe a little bit, but don’t get cocky. They almost killed me when I did that, which would have been inconvenient.”
Lila
snickered, but nodded in agreement.
“True master, but it’s a lot of fun.”
Her eyes danced when I gave her the order to go master hunting, and she teleported away into the city as I measured the defenses. There was no large force gathered like at the last small city, but there seemed to be a lot more of them on the walls.
Interspersed with the soldiers, there were several mages, a good amount of their auras told me they were adept and above, and most of them were casting spells. I cast an earth spell which brought up a large wall in front of me, which was almost immediately blown apart by fire, ice, earth, and air attacks. But it had done its job and protected me, that and the protection enchantments I had on too.
I summoned a medium sized earth elemental with orders to protect me through the staff. When I’d destroyed a part of the wall in the last city, it was done in anger and embarrassment. I didn’t want to repeat that here.
I couldn’t use the exploding stone spears either for the same reason, but I’d changed the spell slightly to make a new one. It worked a lot like the one the magic puzzle room had taught April, except instead of the second stage being air blades, it was a much weaker version of the explosive fire I usually used.
Not weaker in power, since it was still cast with the power of a master behind it, but the effects would be far more measured and smaller in scope.
Several darts of stone left my hand. Those mages which were protected from physical harm, the darts bounced off and there was a small burst of harmless fire. The mages that were only protected from magic were a different story. The stone darts impaled them, and since the buried part of the dart was past their protections, the small magical explosion of fire cooked their insides quite nicely. Ironically perhaps, their protections helped to keep the magical explosion confined.
Several of the mages fell dead, smoke rising from their corpses.
It was their turn again, and they shot several more projectiles of fire, air, water, and earth. The soldiers fired bows and crossbows as well. The earth elemental formed another wall in front of me and blocked the damage, then sunk the wall. A few of the mages were cleverer, and I found myself almost blinded by a tornado that dropped on my head, and it quickly became a firestorm. I brought up a spell form and filled it with light magic, a cleric would take several seconds to cast a strong dispel, but for me it was easy enough to just cast.
Light exploded around me in a globe, and wiped away the spells holding the fire and winds together. My six sphere enchanted robes had held off any magical damage in the short time it was active, but I was rather hot, and felt windblown.
This time I didn’t get fancy, and simply sent several light bolts with enough power to get through their protections. Several more mages fell, which would make this fight much more manageable.
I summoned six fire elementals while the earth elemental defended me once again, and sent them to the wall to kill any humans with power. Then I sent some more light bolts, which took out a few of the officers.
Four of the elementals were destroyed, but they managed to finish off the mages before they faded. I wasn’t sure where the warriors were, maybe they were in the city chasing Lila as she ran down the masters. I wasn’t sure.
With no magical support, and no officers left, I yelled out, “Surrender, drop your weapons, and come out of the city and you won’t be harmed.”
Fighting mortals with power was one thing, they could get lucky, and actually hurt me if not destroy my avatar. They almost had last time, if that ballista bolt had been a few inches higher. But normal soldiers didn’t have a prayer, at least not without a siege engine, and I just felt the need to make the offer. I didn’t want to slaughter them, I didn’t want to kill anyone I didn’t have to, much less oppressed peasants forced into armor and given a sword. I just needed to weaken my family enough to take back my rightful place and get revenge for their betrayal of an infant.
Though I had to admit, destroying the oppressive church of Jennesar, and safeguarding Nysten did appeal to me, and I was glad it was the means to my end goal. It was hard not to feel that way, after meeting with and allying with their people.
Six of the soldiers shot arrows at me, and I cast an earth spell which sent normal but quite large stone spears through their bodies. I’d made it as final and messy as possible, instant retaliation against those six that had attacked me. Not out of cruelty, but in the hopes of intimidating the rest of them into giving up.
As I’d hoped would happen, the rest dropped their weapons, and opened the gates. I moved them to the side, and penned them in with short walls, with my earth elemental as a guard. I dropped the spell around our group, and let them take over. They could deal with trying to convert the soldiers, and decide if they needed to be released or killed.
I moved forward with the intention of joining Lila, I could use our bond to lead me right to her.
Then I smiled grimly, as I saw all the paladins and clerics escaping out of the eastern gate, and giving us plenty of room as they moved around us. Well, that was a pretty good indication that all of Jennesar’s remaining military might would be at the capitol city when we arrived. I let them go and moved into the city. I had to help Lila clean up what resistance was left, and it would probably be another week or two at least before the team was done converting the city.
It didn’t take long, most of the guards had surrendered and left the city, or they’d died on the walls. There were a few warriors though, which I took out with a simple but powerful light magic bolt.
One large capitol city three times the size of this one, and six villages to go. Though, I doubted they’d hold back, the highest of Jennesar would use everything he had to stop me from ending him and his church. Which meant the battle at the next city, the capitol, would be the decisive one.
Lila said, “I think that’s all of them. Let’s find an inn, and get cleaned up.”
I nodded, she was covered in blood, and I was at least dusty and sweaty.
“Why don’t we find something to do tonight, since we don’t have to watch the temples, they’re already emptied out. There’s a good chance we won’t be universally recognized in a city this large too. After that, then I’ll take you to bed.”
Lila said throatily, “A date master? I’d love to.”
Chapter Fifteen
Catalina froze for a split second, as she watched Diana go down.
They were on level eleven, which was adept level three rated. She was still only level one or two, but Diana was three, and they had a team of six and figured they could handle it. They had been handling it.
She’d succeeded the other day in summoning an air elemental of decent power. It had become as she’d hoped, a good scout for traps as well as an added damage multiplier in battle. It’d been one of the deciding factors when they’d moved on to the second of the harder undead levels.
Diana and Cary had been fighting an undead knight while the four of them and her elemental were fighting off five zombies, the sixth zombie was already down. It was difficult, but they were doing it. Then at some unknown event, a trap door had opened, revealing two undead mages, and another undead knight, which quickly engaged the couple out ahead, and had managed to clip Diana’s head.
So, she’d frozen, since they were far too busy fighting with five zombies to help, but while Cary fought like an animal to hold back the two undead knights from finishing off Diana, the two undead mages were pelting his weakening protections with spells. She didn’t know what to do, and no one else seemed to be taking charge.
But she only froze for a moment.
She snapped out the only order that made sense, “Retreat, now!”
Cary said loudly and angrily, “Fuck no,” but she didn’t take offense, and he actually did follow her order when he saw Diana’s body float off the floor and start to move back. She’d already given her elemental mental orders as she’d ordered the retreat, to retrieve and carry Diana.
Like she’d have left Diana behind?
>
Cary jumped away to disengage, and then rushed toward the four of them, taking out a zombie with a surprise attack from behind. Now they just had four zombies, two undead mages, and two undead knights as they backed away and tried to escape. The undead mobs were tough, but beatable, except it was now apparent to her why this was rated adept level three, the groups of them were much larger.
On level ten the undead groups were four, one and one, here on eleven it had started with six, one, and one which they’d done well enough with. Apparently, the damned dungeon liked surprises, because halfway through they were hit with the six zombies, two undead knights, and two undead mages, which was just too much for them to handle, especially with Diana down. The undead knights weren’t slow though, and were rapidly closing the distance with their now combined group.
“Mina, give me a wall of ice as thick as you can make it.”
The simple air bolt wasn’t that effective anymore, it’s why she used other spells like tornados, and multiple smaller air bolts. All it ever did was push them back, and not harm them. However, it was just what they needed to cover their retreat. Or at least, to give Mina time to cast her spell to cover their retreat.
The simple spell took less than a second to fire off, and exploded against one of the zombies throwing it back about five feet, which slowed the undead knights by impacting their legs.
A moment later, a thick stream of water left Mina’s cupped and raised hands, and literally layered a foot wide ice wall across the wide hallway they’d been fighting in, all the way up to the ceiling.
Mina said, “It won’t last long.”
She replied, “Doesn’t have to. Let’s run, now. We can heal Diana when we reach the teleport alcove.”
No one argued and they were at least fifteen feet away when there was a loud sound, followed by the hissing sound of steam, and the ice wall cracked. Damn those things could hit hard, plus the undead mages. It was time enough to cover their escape though, and they made it back through the maze of hallways, the air elemental unerringly guided them through the traps they’d avoided on the way in.