Dungeon at War: Dark Dungeon 03

by D. R. Rosier

  He nodded, “I’m good, between the training team with the duchess, and your initiates you’re already doing more than I should ask. Liren does help a little bit, she has her own duties though which I don’t want to take her from.”

  She made a considering sound and said teasingly, “A bit? She spends more than a bit of time in here highest.”

  She made an obvious sniffing sound, which made him wriggle in his chair. Damn it. He may have been highest, but in that moment he felt like a school boy being caught taking an extra cookie.

  He cleared his throat nervously, “Dismissed.”

  She tittered as she ran out. What had gotten into her anyway? Life was simpler before the lines between them had blurred into friendship, but he had to admit, they were a lot more boring back then as well…

  Chapter Seventeen

  “Hey sexy?”

  My bright eyed imp replied, “Yes master?”

  Hmm, she usually comes out, but this time she stayed in her little home.

  “Are you hiding, I haven’t seen you all day. I also need your advice.”

  She came out and flew over, and she was wearing a very loose multi-layer silken red gown that hid all of her curves. I’d never seen her dress so conservatively before, yet her face was glowing, and she looked beautiful.

  “Nice dress, but what’s going on?”

  She blushed and fidgeted for a moment, “I’m… getting fat.”

  I didn’t laugh, I wouldn’t laugh. Hold in the laugh…

  “Excuse me? I doubt that, are you showing already? Let me see.”

  She pouted at me, and then flattened the gown against her lower torso and hips. Sure enough, there was a bump there.

  “Demons mature quite a bit faster than humans do in the womb, just sixteen weeks. So… another eight or so.”

  She looked nervous.

  I replied, “You look beautiful little imp, but wear what you want. But please don’t hide from me.”

  She smiled shyly, “Okay Nurien. Another thing, I’m pretty sure at the end I’ll need to stay human sized the last week or so. Your contribution means my child will be way too big.”

  “Well, out there you’ll need to stay that way too, won’t you?”

  She sighed, “I suppose, where people can see me at any rate. Didn’t you want my advice on something?”

  Damn, the baby bump had distracted me.

  “Oh right, well the gnomes finished with the siege and war golems. I planned out four levels for them, all master level five or even harder like our current hardest level. For instance, the first new floor is one giant cavern, kind of a war zone, with gnomish golem artillery, and siege golems. Open, but with lots of places to move in and out of cover. It will be necessary in fact, I don’t think anyone could survive it without the cover. The rewards for the floor are mostly mithril based weapons, armor, and enchantments, all random. I even threw in light and dark elemental stones as a possibility. Risky as hell, but the crazy greedy humans will love it.”

  She asked teasingly, “So what’s the question?”

  “Well, the floor I just explained, and the other three, are more like death trap rooms, high risk and high reward, but the whole level instead of one room. Raw power won’t help, they’ll need to be smart and clever about it to survive. So, since we have twenty-six levels already going from initiate level one to master level five, I was thinking maybe I shouldn’t make them official dungeon levels that have to be beaten to get to our room and complete the dungeon.

  “Instead, I envisioned putting four more teleport alcoves spread around the twenty-sixth level, maybe with a warning sign on them. If I need to expand the official dungeon levels, I can just double up or something on the current twenty-six, but those four will be like… challenge levels. Or, I could just forget all that and put them in as four more normal levels so we have thirty.”

  She looked curious and asked, “What are the other three levels?”

  “Twenty-eight through thirtieth will be a little bit of everything set up as a labyrinth, cavern, and typical corridors and rooms respectively. The strongest of demons, elementals, undead, gnomish traps, puzzles, and the final room a siege engine along with progressively harder support mobs.”

  She giggled, “I think you got carried away master. Maybe you better go with your challenge death level idea, and tie them all into twenty-six.”

  I put a portion of my will on building it.

  “That’s what I thought too, but I thought I’d ask you. You umm, busy love?”

  She raised an eyebrow, “What did you have in mind?”

  “Oh, to prove to you very thoroughly that you are more beautiful than ever.”

  She smiled and bit her lip, and then posed for me. I took that as a yes, and hit her with the spell…

  “Things are ready?” I asked Selwyn. Lila and I, along with Selwyn and Mary were sitting around a table at the inn sharing lunch.

  The second small city had been a nightmare. Perhaps the Jennesar master council had been even crueler here than at other places, but the peasants had gone a bit wild as they realized they had freedom for the first time. There’d been riots, with some government buildings as the only casualties, and a lot of celebrations. A lot of pent up emotions exploded, and the guards I’d brought in via portal had been as understanding as possible, but still had to restore order. It had taken a couple of weeks before the city’s populace settled down, and even started to become receptive to Selwyn and Mary’s message about the Nysten pantheon.

  It wasn’t all bad, without the church to keep an eye on since they’d fled right after the battle, Lila and I hadn’t been stuck inside an inn all the time, and while our sex life was still strong it wasn’t as all-consuming as when we had been stuck in one room for days at a time. We’d even taken the opportunity to leave the city during the day, and look around Tenemin for an estate to buy.

  If Lila thought it was weird I took her to help pick out a house for my avatar and Ebony, she didn’t show it. She did tease me a few times though. We wound up buying a medium sized estate, a small mansion with large acreage and a stable, on the southern edge outside the city walls. It was very close to my dungeon as well. I spent a day putting up protections, and even built a few small sized security golems just in case. Miniature versions of what was in my dungeon so they could easily be hidden, but just as powerful.

  I was perhaps just a tad too overprotective already, and my child hadn’t even been born yet.

  The strangest part was hiring workers to fix up the place, which hadn’t been lived in for quite a while, when I could’ve made it good as new in just minutes.

  The only thing I hadn’t done was hire servants or buy horses for the stable. I wanted Ebony’s approval for anyone we hired, and until then there’d be no one to take care of horses or livestock. I wasn’t sure that we needed them, but my neighbors were a rich minor lord on one side, and an earl on the other, so there were expectations. I wondered if Ebony and I could truly fit in, but I would try for the sake of my child. At the very least, we could persevere until she was grown up, and ready to meet the world on his or her own terms.

  Of course, Lila had pointed out the flaw in our twenty-year plan with a smirk in her voice. I was quite virile, and Ebony wouldn’t be running out of eggs until the end of time. I’d laughed her comment off at the time, but honestly, I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I wasn’t sure I was more disturbed or excited by the idea of more children. It was on my mental list of things to run by Ebony. I could make my sperm non-viable with a thought, but I didn’t want to make that decision for both of us alone. I may have been master but Ebony and Lila were not slaves. They were servants, and served me of their own free will, and most definitely joined my bed and loved me at their will.

  Selwyn’s answer to my question interrupted my thoughts.

  Selwyn replied, “Yes, we’re ready I think. We had all the temples re-sanctified the first few days, it’s just taken time for the conversion part. In either case,
I’m leaving behind both one of the strongest of the paladins and mages, and the guard force should help. We’re also just a call away if needed.”

  Mary smiled, “The young eight light affinities are doing well too. Three of them have shown a natural inclination toward cleric, the other five paladins.”

  “Alright, spread the word that we’re leaving tomorrow morning.”

  Selwyn nodded, and then looked uncomfortable. Finally, he said, “Carlton wanted me to ascertain exactly… what you are and where you’re from. You don’t have to answer me, our alliance doesn’t depend on it, but Carlton is a curious man and if…”

  He cut off as I lifted my hand.

  I said, “What I will tell you is our bodies were made to handle more than a normal mortal body can as far as power and magic, by a higher being. Not a common occurrence, but certainly not unique.”

  It was true as far as it went, I just didn’t tell him I was the higher being that did it. I also never said our bodies were mortal at all, just said it in such a way he’d make that assumption. Lila smirked at me, and I continued.

  “All I’ll add, is that once both our goals are reached in regard to Jennesar and the church, I will still be around, and hope to be friends with both the church of light and the ducal throne. Where I’m from doesn’t really matter.”

  I did hope that, except I wouldn’t be able to help them anymore, not directly at any rate. Truthfully, I kind of wanted to tell them the truth, but even if they didn’t react negatively my life would turn into a circus, as people came from everywhere to see the avatar of the god. That was a life I didn’t want.

  Mary said, “You’ll still be around?” and then she looked at Lila questioningly. The woman was far too perceptive to pick up that distinction so fast, that I’d said I, instead of we.

  Lila shrugged, “It’s complicated. I’ll pop in on occasion though. I have responsibilities elsewhere, after this mission is complete.”

  Selwyn nodded, “He’ll have to be satisfied with that, I won’t sit here and question you.”

  We watched the two of them get up, and leave to prepare to travel tomorrow morning.

  Lila sighed, “Are you sure your plans with Ebony are a good idea?”

  I laughed, “Nope. But we can always just pick up and leave if we’re found out. They already know I’m powerful, so a little weirdness is already expected.”

  Lila grinned, “I’m dying to know how you’re going to explain a different lover, that’s pregnant, coming out of nowhere when I disappear. How… deliciously scandalous,” her sultry voice caressed that last word.

  That was assuming this would all be done in the next eight weeks. It probably would be, but it would be close.

  I sighed in mock severity, “I did purge you of evil, didn’t I?”

  She laughed throatily, and gazed at me seductively through her eyelashes, “Maybe you should take me upstairs and spank it out of me, master.”

  Now there was an idea…

  Chapter Eighteen

  “Fuck me,” I cursed vociferously as I wondered if allowing them to converge their forces and prepare was another hugely arrogant mistake. Even Lila looked unusually grave and didn’t use my curse as fodder for one of her off color jokes, as she stared at what was before us.

  We’d come out of the portal about half a mile from the city’s walls to see what they’d come up with for a final stand of sorts.

  There were over ten thousand church soldiers, and over a thousand enemies with power. Clerics, paladins, mages, and warriors. I had to assume at least a score of them were masters, perhaps more. The city had about sixty thousand peasants, and I figured all the extra magic came from those in the training schools in the city.

  No doubt to train their abilities, and learn how to torture the peasants properly.

  Behind the large force, up on the wall, were six ballistae, and in wider sections of wall, four catapults.

  Believe it or not, none of that was what had made me curse, or what gave me pause. Even if I couldn’t destroy them all before one of them got lucky, I could simply rebuild my avatar, or Lila’s angelic body. Eventually, I would win, and the Jennesar church would fall. I could even make out a banner, and believed that the highest of Jennesar himself was on the field as well, and not hiding under his desk. They weren’t holding anything back.

  I’d have felt grudging respect for my enemy because of that, if it wasn’t for the rest of what I saw which filled me with disgust.

  No, what made me furious was all the peasant shields. There were groups of peasants huddled on the wall around all the siege equipment, and interspersed with the guards along the whole wall. There were also a couple of thousand peasants sitting on the ground in front of the ten thousand soldier army.

  Well I’d wanted them to know I was coming to get this over with, and this was the result of my arrogance. How could I possibly win, without losing.

  Selwyn said in horrified awe, “My goddess, they’re forcing you to be a heartless cold-blooded conqueror instead of the liberator. If you kill all those peasants, we’ll never convert the city. They’ll hate us as much as they hate the current Jennesar master council and church.”

  He was right, the highest was depending on me recognizing that, and either surrendering or giving up. That wasn’t going to happen.

  Then things changed, the soldiers on the walls drew their swords, and held them at the necks of the peasants.

  A loud voice rang out, no doubt amplified by a spell, “You will surrender immediately, or they all die.”

  Well, fuck.

  Lila asked, “What’s the plan?”

  I may have been a dark god, but what was before me was truly evil.

  I sighed, “I have no choice, I’ll have to reveal the truth of what I am,” I turned to Selwyn, “I don’t suppose you’d go back through the portal?”

  At his blank stare I said, “Didn’t think so. I hope you can keep a secret.”

  I doubted it, but my secret wasn’t as important as a few thousand peasants, or letting that asshole get away with this.

  “Stay here,” I told the others.

  I took Lila’s hand and started walking forward. My crazy plan would only work if they were all within range of my sub-dungeon aura as I’d come to call it. Every step I took I summoned an earth elemental as well, I’d probably be up to several hundred before I was in range. It would be enough to match all the peasants on the walls, plus a few extra, but not nearly enough for those on the ground. Even if I could summon that many that fast, I doubted I could control thousands of them at once, I was just my avatar, not my main will and essence still imprisoned back in the dungeon.

  It was quite disconcerting when we reached the range of fire for not only the hundreds of mages, but also siege engine range for the ballistae and catapults.

  Then we were in crossbow range, shortly followed by arrow range.

  Lila was trembling, but not in fear.

  She squeezed my hand and said in a breathy voice, “This is exciting master.”

  I almost laughed, almost.

  “You’re incorrigible my love.”

  “Stop and strip down your armor and weapons, or I’ll order everyone to fire, at the same time,” the highest of Jennesar ordered in that loud booming voice.

  I was quite sure I wouldn’t survive that, or at least my body wouldn’t. I was also close enough that everything was in my aura, maybe a hundred yards away.

  I gave the elementals their orders, and all the peasants on the walls between the soldiers and around the catapults and ballistae, were pulled down into the stone. That wasn’t the part that would give away my power though. At the same time, I used creation to do several things at once. There would be no way to use magic to save the peasants, I could only cast two things at once, and the peasants before the army were too widely dispersed for a single large globe of invulnerability.

  I needed a tube, and that spell had to be a perfect globe.

  Instead, I wrapped them all
in highly enchanted mithril tube, and then sunk the tube into the ground. I felt a wave of weakness at the surge of power I’d used, but managed to put up a dome of Mithril over both of us, also enchanted with protections from all six spheres, right before the highest yelled, “Kill them, fire now!”

  Mithril was very strong even without enchantment, with what I’d added to it I doubted I’d be able to scratch it without using the power of creation. Creation was also the reason I could use all six spheres, I wasn’t channeling the magic, or even using it, I was simply creating the enchantments inscribed into the dense metal out of nothing.

  Lila said longingly, “Goddess, I want you so bad right now.”

  I did laugh this time, “Later love.”

  We couldn’t stay in there though, I’d only created the dome to stop the initial barrage of everyone firing at once. Plus, with the peasants safe, the earth elementals should have dropped the others into the tube by now, and then had started to attack the guards on the walls which was the secondary mission before they’d be dismissed. It was time to strike back against the main force.

  Just because I could, I created two of the gnome siege golems as Lila teleported us both back fifty yards, to give us breathing room of sorts out of bow and crossbow range. Then I took a deep breath, I could still channel magic and cast spells, but I was out of juice for now. Which told me my dungeon avatar would have to be more powerful than my body avatar to keep up with the dungeon.

  Well, the large elemental stones should take care of that.

  When we appeared, Lila gaped at the sight, and I almost did. I was very pleased with my decision to take in the short ugly race that day.

  A gnome siege golem was the size of a house. Perhaps one thousand eight hundred square feet by dimension. The main part wasn’t uniform exactly, but it was about twenty feet tall on average, twenty-five feet wide, and about seventy-five feet long.

  It had eight legs, like a spider, which were variable in height making the engine capable of clearing fifty foot walls or lower, and had twelve arms with various damaging enchantments on ridiculously large swords, mauls, and maces which were designed to clear a wall, but would work quite well against ground troops as well.