by Dakota Krout
“Is the ceiling falling?” Dale muttered aloud while he looked at the roof with serious concern. Now that he was alone, he was much more talkative.
“Yeah, yeah, Minya told me that killing things is how you get stronger. Don’t remind me. I don’t like to help you.” Dale mentioned breezily, keeping his breathing even as he jogged.
“I do not!”
“That’s diff…” Dale trailed off as he realized the extent of my memory.
“Why, yes it is, Cal. I’m so glad you asked.” Dale laughed as he ran to safety.
Dale closed the door behind him, and soon the walls met with the descending stone. A grinding noise was heard for a few moments as things settled, but all of the walls held. Just in time, too. Wailing and sobbing noises were echoing into the room as the infected stumbled down the stairs. Soon, the sound of battle joined the ruckus as Goblins in the forts were attacked. They showed their mettle, keeping the hoard occupied for nearly a half hour as they fought to the death. Hundreds of lower-ranked infected cultivators died throwing themselves against the walls, but it was the Mages that ended their desperate defense.
The Mages blasted the walls into splinters with very little effort, and the Goblin defenders were soon overrun. Dani had done well holding the Boss area, but she wasn’t ready for Mages yet. She hurried back to me as the Amazon finally fell.
The infected used Essence and Mana liberally, sparing nothing in an attempt to kill as quickly as possible. The Goblin’s armor offered little protection against the globes of water that suddenly surrounded their heads, drowning them where they stood. Blasts of fire cooked them; gusts of wind tore them apart, blasting through gaps in armor. The snarls and screams of rage from the infected slowed, replaced by their sobs and wailing when they ran out of things to kill.
Dale looked around the packed little fort that his people were planning to defend, taking heart in the fact that there was no terror showing. Fear was present, but determination shone in people’s glinting eyes and their firm stances. They may die here, but they would die fighting! Dale nodded, pleased at what he saw. He gave one last command, as softly as possible, “Everyone… first off, good luck. Let’s try to stay as quiet as we can. It’s possible that they may ignore us if we don’t attract their attention.”
He got some nods in return, and all conversation ceased. The infected started filing past, a trickle at first. The trickle quickly turned into a flood. The infected in front of the group moved along toward a noisier fortress, the ones behind them following like sheep. More people looked to Dale, nodding and giving him a ‘thumbs up’. The Guild cook was among them, and patted Dale on the back. “THAT WAS A GOOD PLAN, M’BOY!”
The people in the fort looked at the smiling cook in horror, and the smile slowly slid from the cook’s face. “Dammit. I shoulda let that healer fix my ears.”
A shriek of rage pierced through the walls, impacting their ears as the nearest infected turned toward them in a rage. They almost seemed more furious than usual, as if they knew they had been tricked. The mushroom encrusted beings charged the fort, bent on the destruction of all things living.
~Twenty-Five~
“Nice one, Jason!” Brianna called, laughing right along with me. Somehow she was able to keep these random people’s names straight.
The labyrinth was stuffed full of infected beings. I had Bashers and Cats spawning constantly. Well, at least as fast as I could make them. The infected were expending Essence so frequently that I was easily able to continue production! As the fighting progressed, my Essence gain began to outpace my expenditure, filling me with joy… and Essence! I had Wither Cats hunting Mages because — while Mages were hard to damage — if a Wither Cat landed a successful attack, the Mage’s access to Mana and Essence was heavily restricted. A short while later, the Mage would collapse. They were alive, but unable to access their Centers. This kept them from exploding while taking them out of the fight. Win-win!
“Are you making sure to get all the spores, Cal?” Dani nagged me a bit.
“You’ve got it today or sometime next week?”
“You’ll be busier if we lose an Elf!”
The infected could still see through the boiling air and so had no idea that they were running into the backside of an active portal. In another tunnel, I placed a row of Assimilators along the ceiling and had them fire shards of stone and blasts of fire as continuously as possible. The hanging Assimilators went to work immediately, killing several infected that made their way into the tunnel.
The unending stream of infected began pouring into the shimmering space of the open portals, their deaths silent but for the spray of meat slapping against the nearest surfaces. The group as a whole moved faster into their impending death while the ones at the front struggled, trying to avoid the deadly light. Sadly for them, the infected in the rear were pushing the mass of bodies forward, noticing that there was room to move again.
“Are you doing okay, Cal?” Dani flew around me, staring at me as if she could tell with her vision if I were starting to go insane from the influx of power.
I reassured her with a wide mental grin. Which, now that I think about it, may not have confirmed my sanity in her mind.
“I’m worried.”
Dani paused, looking at the enormous death toll in the dungeon. “I think it is only a matter of time before a Mage dies in here. I have no idea what might happen in that case… will you move directly into the Mage rank? Will you only get their Essence? Will you die from the sudden gain? What if…”
This seemed to throw her off, “You do? What?”
“And you are… sure it will work?” Dani asked in a skeptical tone.
I turned a bit red,
“It’s a what?” Dani spun in place, trying to understand what I was saying.
Snowball started moving in different attack patterns as Dani took over his movements. Dani went for weak points like throats and joints, whereas Snowball usually just mauled whoever got near him. It seemed she was not going to answer my question. Ah well.
I gauged the amount of Essence I was accumulating. So far, the majority of dying creatures were in the D-ranks. They did not give me much Essence overall, but a constant drop in a bucket will still fill it up eventually! I began devoting more attention to refining what Essence I was gaining. My cultivation pattern allowed me to passively and efficiently remove the corruption I was accumulating, but directly and actively removing it was even faster. I was moving through the C-ranks quickly, as I had already reached C-rank four!
A fort was breached on my third floor, and soon the death toll began increasing yet again. Most of the attackers were too weak to do much damage, but their huge numbers allowed C-ranked and even B-ranked infected to attack without warning. When the first C-ranked defender died it felt like a lightning bolt had struck me! Essence shot into my Core, swiftly swirling into the hole in my aura. My mind’s construct of a galaxy of cultivation lit up with points of brilliant Essence appearing in the void!
The fighting above raged on while my Elven guards mercilessly slaughtered the few infected that made it into my room. The fighters on the third floor were holding up well, protected as they were by the forts. I was feeling very good about their chances of survival until a massive blast of Mana slammed into the mountaintop above my dungeon. It was strange, and I soon understood the issue; it was undirected Mana! When the Mages above had detonated their Centers, the freed Mana began reacting according to its nature. All Mana was accumulated by forcing Essence into a concept, a law of the world. The Mana above was attempting to re-shape the world in its image, causing catastrophic damage.
One of the types of Mana must have been a gravity derivative, because everything above was being sucked into a gravity well and slammed against the ground with the force of a falling star. What was currently impacting the mountain and reducing it to rubble? Birds. Flying overhead, their mass in the gravity well was enough to dig ten-foot holes into the rock. The real issue arrived when a quagmire of Mana was sucked in, impacting the Celestial quartz and shattering the rock holding it in place with a huge outburst of power.
The quartz that had been directly Inscribed by the Runescript was nearly unaffected - Runes were quite durable when made properly - but the small portion of the quartz reinforced with celestial Essence that did break sent a shockwave of concentrated power outward, killing any infected within a dozen feet. The huge plate of minerals smashed forty feet to the dungeon floor, breaking off the activation sequence of the Script. The remaining Runes were intact but now useless because the bridge to their power was removed. That was the good news. The bad news was that there was now an opening the infected could pour into, increasing how many could enter the dungeon at a time.
~Dale~
“You are way too happy about that.” Dale muttered, getting an odd look from the people around him, who were all exceedingly somber.
“How are you so clean?” Hans glared jealously at his friend. “My clothes have poop on them, Dale. Poop. You don't even have blood on you!”
Dale laughed at his overly cleanly friend and demonstrated. He threw a punch into an infected person who got too close, blasting its face into meaty chunks. A bit of gore got onto him, but waving his battle gauntlet near it sent it zipping away to land on someone else. “Fluid repulsion Rune.” Dale chuckled smugly at the angry look sent his way by the other — now slightly filthier — defenders. “Seriously though, I have a feeling that things are about to get worse.”
Hans made a face, “What tipped you off? The ground shaking or the underground thunder?”
“Definitely the ground shaking.”
“Cheeky brat.” Hans ducked a wild swing from a weak once-human, retaliating with a blow that removed the creature's head.
The number of attackers started to swell, increasing until they were literally crawling over each other in an attempt to fill the room with wriggling bodies. Dale was worried that they would be overrun — but soon had a bit more to be concerned about.
As the press of bodies became too intense, the weaker infected were pinned to the ground. After a few moments of being walked on, they gave up and shattered their Cores. Their suicidal assault blew holes in the attacking line. Chunks of stone began raining down as the walls and floor were damaged. Fire filled the air, and chaos reigned supreme!
“We need to make sure there aren’t too many of them on the walls at one time!” Rose screamed over the hubbub. “If they pack in, they’ll blow us all to the abyss!”
Dale was amazed at the amount of death that had followed the relatively weak cultivators shattering their Centers. In the confined space, the blasts had been far more effective at tearing apart bodies than anything he had been able to muster.
“Dale! Move!” Tom cried out, tackling Dale away from the wall as a form blasted a small section of it to bits. Tom cried out in pain as his good arm was grabbed through the opening and he began to be drug out of the safe area.
“Tom!” Rose screamed, racing forward. The defenders moved together, and began a painful tug-of-war using Tom’s body as the rope. Tom screamed as the defenders won with a roar and a jerk, pulling off the arm of the creature that had been gripping him.
“Anyone need a hand?” Tom panted, then chuckled. “I… ha-ha… I got a spare arm now!”
There were chuckles all around as people went back to defending. Someone called out, “I wouldn’t use that one; you have no idea where it might have been!”
“Looks like we don’t need to give you a hand; seems you have a good handle on things!”
“Yikes, this fight is getting out of hand!”
Rose shuddered, “You all need to stop.” Her statement was met with laughs. The laughing turned into loud cheering as Tom used the scavenged arm to beat a creature to death while the Dwarves worked to fix the wall and reinforce it.
“There we go! I am at thirty-eight!” Tom called out with a grin on his face. “I’m doing better than all of you with one hand tied behind my… oh, right.” He grinned as people laughed, wiggling his stump.
Dale was struck by inspiration. “A platinum bonus to whoever gets the most kills! And after this drinks are on me for a week!” A roar of approval met his words, and the flagging spirits of the fighters were rejuvenated. Arrows, blades, darts from blowguns, and all sorts of artillery flew into the crowd, killing the bestial ex-sentients at a distance.
As the things closed in on the fort, the defenders activated dozens of different techniques. Blood rose from the ground and formed whirling blades that tore
chunks of meat from anything they touched. Shards of stone zipped into the melee. Apparitions appeared and flew into the ranks, killing without leaving a mark. One Mage released some kind of gas that only moved among the enemy ranks, not doing anything until he snapped his fingers. Then the whole group it had engulfed seemed to turn to dust and scattered on the floor. A bleeding Frank whispered stop repeatedly, targeting individual combatants. They would slow, then stop, finally detonating and taking out groups around themselves.
“I’m counting all of those as mine.” Frank stated calmly as some people jeered.
“Of course you are, Franky.” Hans patted him on the back, leaving a bloody handprint. “We all know you need the money, right?” Frank glared at him and shrugged.
Even with the wholesale slaughter happening on the killing ground, the infected were still coming, even more dangerous now that the weakest of them were dying off.
“Oh, abyss no.” Dale heard a soft voice say near him. He turned to see the swordsman Nez looking into the crowd. Nez pulled in a gasp of air, “”Don’t worry, I’ve got this one.” He moved as close as he could to the wall, taking a defensive stance and breathing deeply. Just as he sharply inhaled, a thunderous boom began shaking the walls.
Dale had to blink rapidly to clear his vision, blinded by a massive, writhing column of lightning that had formed a continuous stream from an infected Mage. The path of it was still burning in the air as the Mage attempted to channel it into the defenders. At the halfway point, the path acquired a sharp turn, pulsating toward Nez. There was a beautiful Runescript in the air in front of him, spinning in place as the lightning accumulated on it like flies on feces. Nez was beginning to pant as sweat poured off of him. The wall — inches from his face — was glowing and melting from the plasma burning through it. Any infected that ran through the light had whatever bit of them that touched it lopped off, and the wound cauterized even while the flowing electricity killed them.