Void Legion

by Terry C. Simpson

  “Run.” Frost bounded from their hiding place out beneath the colonnade.

  And barely managed to dodge an empowered Nether Lance, the bar of black aether and energy as large and long as a man. The alcove exploded. Stone and debris peppered Frost and his friends. Gilda threw up a blue Aether Barrier, saving them from the worst of it.

  They sprinted between the pillars hellbent on reaching the now empty room. Frost snatched a look behind him. Several Blackguards had extricated themselves from the battle to give chase.

  CHAPTER 34

  Frost, Gilda, Dante, and Sigrid raced between the pillars at the start of the empty room. Saba waited up ahead, grinning madly beneath the light of several bloomglobes, proud of her contribution.

  “Go! Go!” Desperate, Frost waved his hand toward her. “Take us through the rooms you cleared.” He jerked a thumb to indicate their rear. “We got about six Blackguards coming.”

  “Six? On top of the eight or nine other enemies I counted? What the hell?” Saba unlimbered her bow. “Isn’t that a full raid group?”

  “Sure is,” Frost said.

  He had barely uttered the words when Saba brought her bow up and loosed. She followed up the quick successive shots of Triple Barrage with an Aether Arrow. Frost stopped and turned to see the Battleguards running down the colonnade. He made to launch Concussion Blast in their direction when he had an idea.

  “Everyone, target the colonnade’s roof and pillars with your most explosive spells. We gotta collapse it. Also, hit the Battleguards with anything that slows or stuns.”

  Frost unloaded with most of his abilities in quick succession. Projectiles ripped into the stone. Aether Shots exploded, showers of debris cascading out from their impacts. He saved Concussion Blast for the Battleguards. Saba loosed a constant stream of arrows, forcing the Battleguards to use Aether Barriers and Shields.

  Stalactites and Stalagmites blossomed down the hall. Gilda exploded them by way of Glacial Eruption, coating the hall in ice. Her Fire Globes and Infernal Spears tore into the wall above where the hall ended and pummeled several pillars. Dante waited in case any Battleguards got through.

  Debris and stone chips flew. The room shook. In the enclosed space, the barrage of abilities and their impacts became a roar. A spiderweb of cracks ran up several pillars. With a final groan, part of the roof collapsed, exposing bedrock. Moments later, the pillars fell and the rest of the roof with it. A cloud of dust burst outward. The group stopped the barrage.

  Frost squinted. “Looks to be as good as it’s gonna get. Between the lure and that, they’ll be a while.”

  “I just have one question,” Dante said. “How do we get out when we’re done with the emperor?”

  “Through here.” Frost nodded to the piled rubble blocking the hall. He could hear the enemy on the other side. “They don’t know it, but they’re gonna dig our path out.”

  “I like that.” Dante grinned.

  “Gilda, lead us to the emperor,” Frost said.

  “We should really hurry.” Saba was staring at the rubble, head tilted to one side, a frown etched on her face. “I don’t think we have as much time as we’d like.”

  “What makes you say that?” Frost asked. “That void revenant was a GUM. Add it to all those mobs and the rubble…” He shrugged, palms up, as his voice trailed off, the conclusion obvious to him.

  “I can hear them,” Saba said. “They aren’t fighting anymore.”

  “Nonsense. I know dresdori have a trait for hearing, but is it good enough to get through that all the way into the next room?” Frost gestured at the rubble.

  “It is.” Saba nodded.

  “Her claim makes sense,” Gilda said.

  “How?”

  “She did the pulls. Those mobs scaled for her level the moment she pulled. When she lured on Setnana’s group, aggro transferred to them at Saba’s level. Setnana and her Battleguards are several levels higher and will have killed them easily. Their only obstacle will be the blockage. At least until the respawns.”

  “You coulda told me scaling was based off who pulled and not by who entered,” Frost said. “Adesh and Ryne could be in here right now with us clearing.”

  “They could’ve but the penalty for our level differences would’ve been no exp or loot from kills,” Gilda said. “And the Sanctum also scales up in difficulty for numbers in a group and doesn’t allow you to alter groups once inside.

  “The emperor also has an additional check where he scales on the fly to compensate for any other exploit we might try. And you’re sealed inside the throne room once the encounter begins.”

  “Wouldn’t Saba’s Concealment have reset the mobs?” Dante asked. “And made aggro transfer to Setnana’s group at their levels?”

  “Only if she pulled it off before Setnana’s group attacked,” Frost mused.

  Everyone looked to Saba.

  She shook her head. “They didn’t give me a chance. They started firing the moment they saw me. I had to dive to get out of the way before I Concealed. Do you know what a centaur looks like diving?”

  Frost chuckled as he imagined it. “We need the fastest way to the emperor, then. And we need to get moving now.”

  “No doubt. Follow me.” Gilda headed toward the far end of the room where three doors waited. “Which of those rooms did you lure from, Saba?”

  “All three and three more after this.”

  “Shiiiit,” Dante said. “Six rooms? That’s freaking epic.”

  “Thank you.” Saba practically strutted.

  “She surprised me too, Dante.” Frost eyed Saba with a newfound respect. “I didn’t expect it, not with the way she always runs from danger.”

  “Not always,” Saba protested.

  They all stopped and looked at her.

  “What? I did the lure, didn’t I?” Her tail swished.

  “Which involved running from danger,” Dante pointed out.

  Gilda and Frost burst into laughter.

  “Okay, okay,” Saba huffed. And then mumbled something about dumb brutes and always wanting to fight.

  “Which of the rooms after these three didn’t you lure from?” Gilda asked.

  Saba pointed at the middle door. “The two after that one.”

  They continued forward along a wall with bloomglobes at measured intervals. The yellow luminance highlighted the intricate designs and glyphs etched upon the marble walls. Gilda led them through the central door.

  They emerged upon a balcony that circled the room. There were stairs on either side. At the far end was a door on their level and one below. They made their way across the balcony to the door where they could see down a short hall.

  Four gray-scaled draconid overseers waited in the next room, a network of vibrant red and blue adorning their chest and muscular arms like nebulous veins. One had a mist sword, while the other had a storm lance, electricity running up and down its length. The other two had korbitanium vambraces and greaves.

  “Lure this room and the next to buy us extra time,” Gilda said. “This is the last place we can do it. In the previous alpha, not only did the mobs after the next two rooms see through Concealment, but there was no place to lure them to.”

  She pointed to the stairs behind them. “We’ll hide below. Pull them all the way across the balcony and into the room we collapsed. That’ll give us enough time to run through to a safe spot before the next group of mobs. We’ll wait for you there.”

  “Sounds good,” Saba said. She paused, brow wrinkled. Her tail swished. “Do any of the mobs leash?”

  “Leash?” Sigrid asked.

  “It means do the mobs automatically stop chasing and return to their original location after they travel a certain distance,” Frost explained.

  “Not in dungeons like this,” Gild
a answered. “They’ll follow you until you find a way to drop aggro and reset them. Or until they kill you.”

  “I’ll choose answer A for a hundred points,” Saba said.

  Frost gave her a tight smile. “Sounds about right because we need you. Be careful.”

  “I will.”

  Frost, Gilda, Dante, and Sigrid headed downstairs. Frost peeked into the bottom room. It held a dozen nalarr.

  “Concealed defilers are with them,” Gilda said before he asked the obvious question.

  “Ah.” He understood Gilda’s choice now. Although the draconid overseers were more powerful by far, they were melee. Defilers were casters.

  “Hope you guys are out of sight,” Saba said from above. “Because I’m going.” The clip-clop of her hooves advanced and then faded.

  “What’s left after the two rooms she pulls?” Frost asked.

  “Two more rooms and the maze.”

  “You’ve been through the maze, right?” Frost had not been a fan of mazes in other games. He found them annoying.

  “Twice. But more by luck than anything else. The path changes every time.”

  “What’s the maze like?” Frost asked.

  “A series of tiny rooms with eight doors like so.” With the tip of her dagger, Gilda carved a rectangle into the wall’s stone bricks. She added eight points to indicate door positions, two per side. “A thirty-minute timer begins when you enter. No one has managed to clear the maze in the allotted time. Entering a door will teleport you into an identical room with various mobs. Each room has its number painted on the walls and a letter above each door. You can fight or you can leave through any door. But once you enter, the mobs are aggroed and remain that way. The only good news there is that the mobs don’t or can’t go through the doors.”

  “Sounds like a pain-in-the-ass,” Frost said.

  Gilda nodded. “No doubt. There’s also a good chance you’ll return to a room you were already in, either from the door you left, with mobs waiting to kill you, or one of the other doors, which gives you a chance to run to another one unscathed. Rinse and repeat until you end up in a hall leading to the throne room.”

  Frost’s brow knitted. “So, we could end up running in circles.”

  “Players have gotten stuck indefinitely,” Gilda admitted.

  “Damn.” Frost grimaced. “What happens when the timer runs out?”

  “Nothing as far as I could tell. We just kept trying until we made it.”

  Frost glanced at her quizzically. “Nothing? That doesn’t make sense. There’s gotta be a reason for the timer.”

  “No doubt.” Gilda shrugged. “But I’ve never been able to figure it out.”

  “Might be the reason no one’s beaten the emperor,” Frost said.

  “Might be.” Gilda nodded.

  Frost checked his quests for a hint. He had new one under the chain for Imanok Sanctum. Into the Maze. As with any other quest, it gave no detail as to the objective.

  “Anyone ever figured out the actual pattern for the maze?” Dante was frowning. “All mazes usually have one.” Gilda shook her head.

  “Do you think they’d change the path every time?” Frost asked.

  “I doubt it,” Gilda said. “But I have an idea for a pattern from a ton of research I did since the last alpha. I’m not trying to get stuck in there for hours again. Now that I think about it, we should’ve asked—never mind.” She shot a regretful look Frost’s way.

  Frost let out a relieved breath that she’d caught herself before she said anything about Pops. Brow furrowed, he cocked his head as his echolocation kicked in. “You feel that, Gilda?”

  “Yeah, Saba’s on her way back.”

  Frost hefted Deadeye and pointed it up toward the balcony. “Let’s be ready in case we gotta fight.”

  The distinct roars of draconid overseers echoed. Saba’s hooves beat a frantic rhythm on the stone floor. But they were soon drowned out by the overseers’ metallic footsteps. The pursuit grew louder and closer. As did the mass of bodies picked up by Frost’s echolocation.

  And then Saba and her lure were directly above, sending down a cascade of dust and stone chips. Saba appeared on the balcony to the left. She was galloping for all she was worth. Behind her came six draconid overseers.

  Following them were small ghostly creatures. Five-foot imitations of long dead titans. Spriggans. Frost hissed. The spriggans were small now, but they could inflate themselves to the size of fifteen-foot colossuses.

  “They’re gone,” Dante said, as the last spriggan disappeared through the door. “Let’s go.” He made to move.

  Frost grabbed Dante’s arm. He put his index finger to his lips. Dante froze. Moments later came the focus of Frost’s concern. Two more spriggans.

  When the ghostly creatures were gone, Frost said, “Now, we can go.”

  They sprinted up the stairs and into the next room. Not slowing, they headed for the hall. In the next area, from which Saba must have pulled the spriggans, were several treasure chests. Inside would be the loot the spriggans guarded.

  A chance also existed for any of them to be a trap. Explosive. Poisonous. Or even a toothy mimic. As tempted as he was to take some time and try to open the chests, Frost forced himself on. They stopped in a small alcove before the next area, which held two raven-like void revenants and more spriggans.

  Minutes stretched as they waited, Frost’s thoughts preoccupied by the maze. Since Pops had helped design Void Legion and Estela, he must have known the pattern. Frost wished Gilda had remembered to ask. Or that Pops had thought to mention it. He tried to think of anything unique to his father that might lend a hand. He soon gave up. He needed to see the maze itself.

  Saba’s drumming hooves preceded the sense of her form. She galloped toward them, majestic in her armor on both the equine and humanoid portions of her body. From his vantage, Frost could see past her into the preceding room. A train of mobs followed. But they did not appear to be aggroed. They had reset and were simply returning to their places of origin.

  “We have to hurry and clear,” she said, breathing hard as she reached them. “Setnana has already made it through the blockage. The first room was just now respawning. I doubt they’ll have to deal with any other new spawns. Even if they split up to try to find out which way we went, it’ll only take them but so long.”

  “Shit,” Frost said. “Did any of them see you?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t think so.”

  In the room behind them, the draconid overseers and spriggans had settled into their normal patrols. The sound of spells echoed from the room before it.

  “Maybe they did,” Gilda said.

  CHAPTER 35

  “They’re too close,” Dante said. “Our best shot is to fight them while they’re dealing with the mobs in that room.”

  “How many of them were there?” Frost asked Saba.

  “About twelve.”

  Frost looked from the room with overseers and spriggans to the one before him with the void revenants. Both creatures wielded storm lances. White lightning crackled down the weapons’ lengths and cast long shadows of the revenant’s black cloaked forms. “Gilda, is the room after this pretty much the same? As far as mobs?”

  “Mostly, but one of the revenants is a GUM.”

  “Shit.” Frost wracked his brain for a solution.

  Dante hefted his axe. “Make up your mind. We only have a few minutes.”

  Frost had the spark of an idea. “Does the maze require anything special to enter? Like, do we need to clear the room with the entrance to gain access?”

  “No,” Gilda said. “Just walk through the door.”

  “And this door, is it where we can clearly see it?”

  Gilda pointed. “It’s off in the right corner
.”

  “You aren’t going to do what I think you’re thinking, right?” Saba asked, eyes narrowed. “Please say you aren’t.”

  “I think he isss.” Dante grinned, high-pitched voice a little too excited.

  “We’re gonna run through,” Frost said.

  “Yes!” Dante pumped his fist.

  “God, no.” Saba pawed at the ground. Her tail swished in agitation.

  Frost jutted his chin toward the silver-armored gurash marauder. “Dante, you’re gonna Sentinel Shout and lead us.” He focused on Sigrid. “No heals at all until we’re in the next hallway.” The dvergr nodded timidly. “Just have Mikander’s Tears and Blood prepped for emergency, but don’t use them unless I say so.”

  “You think he’ll be able to handle that much damage with just the increased defense and health from the Shout?” Saba shook her head. “Those revenants will be nuking the hell out of him.”

  “I’m hoping he will,” Frost said.

  “I’m a marauder.” Dante rested his axe on his shoulder. “In chain armor. I think I’ll be alright.” There was a thinly veiled edge of sarcasm to his voice.

  “And what about us?” Saba asked. “Some of those spells are AOEs.”

  “Use pots if you gotta.” Frost shrugged. “Sigrid’s the weakest of us. I don’t want her drawing any aggro. Nor anyone else but Dante, for that matter.”

  “Fair enough, I guess.” Saba pursed her lips.

  “Don’t forget I’ll also be able to lessen some of our damage with my Aether Barriers and Shields,” Gilda reminded them.

  Sigrid spoke in that silvery voice of hers. “I can always summon one or more of my Servitors. The Bulwark can hold a monster and draw its hate away from me. The others can heal or attack. And I can give everyone Aura of the Nomarch, increasing all defense and the amount of vitalization gained from heals.”

  “I had forgotten about those,” Frost admitted. He revised his strategy as he considered the Servitors’ abilities. Servitors came in many forms and had three major roles. Bulwarks took aggro and tanked. Duelists attacked with ranged and melee skills. Shamans healed and removed ailments. “If things get too dicey, then call the Bulwark. You can prep heals for emergency.”