War God for Hire- Adventurer: A Reincarnation, Cultivation Adventure

by David Burke

  “This looks like the little bit of dwarven stonework which I have seen. After the cataclysm, when the dwarves were freed to make contact with the surface world, some of their traders would come out. Because there is a dwarven enclave not far from my home village, we also got to visit there. They are ugly, hairy little brutes, but masters at smithing and stonework. They seem to have some sort of natural affinity for Earth Essence, even though I never saw any casters amongst their people,” Gilthan said.

  “Okay, so be on the lookout for dwarves. If there are some here, they might be peaceful. Don’t attack them without checking, first,” Lash instructed.

  Everyone nodded and then watched as Kierra loped off. Her movement was every bit as graceful as Nyda’s but carried an entirely different sense of power and finesse with it. Kierra simply oozed ferocity, a predator ready to strike. The rest of the party allowed her some time to take the lead down the tunnel.

  It was wide open and as much as forty feet across, but other than the moss, was largely bare.

  Kyle couldn’t help but wonder why a hallway would be made this large. There were a few signs of wear and tear, places where pieces of the ceiling had come down. Not so surprising, if the entire dungeon had been shifted in the earth, by the cataclysm. In fact, it was a great testament to the engineering of the tunnel’s builders, that the structure remained so intact.

  Kierra moved back and forth across the area in front of them, briefly inspecting each pile of debris and constantly looking at the walls for any indication of side tunnels. So far, there hadn’t been any; the dungeon simply went forward in a forty-foot-wide tunnel that sloped ever so slightly downward.

  The rest of the party allowed Skrug to get a good twenty feet or so in front of them before following him. Kyle shadowed Lash and Gilthan, keeping about twenty feet behind them. He could sense Hilde next to him and pondered the best way to reveal her to the party. It didn’t seem like a good idea to do so in the middle of a fight, but they had already started moving before he could initiate anything.

  “I can hear you over there.” Kyle said softly. “Just follow my lead. Don’t reveal yourself unless it is a matter of life and death or I give the go ahead.” He could almost picture her look of frustration, but also knew that if he could have seen her, she would likely have bowed her head to him.

  It was hard sometimes to remember that, to Hilde, he was literally her god.

  Lash looked back. “Did you say something, Kyle?”

  “No, just mumbling to myself about how warm it is down here. I thought it would be damper. Almost feels like there’s a fire down here,” Kyle replied.

  Judging from the way that Lash’s eyes got wide, Kyle assumed she understood what he meant and realized that Hilde was with them, but invisible. She confirmed that, when she kept looking back over her shoulder, as though trying to locate something.

  Hilde softly laughed at his side. “Pathetic little mortal can’t detect me.”

  Kyle shook his head. As funny as Hilde’s mortal snubbing could be, it exposed a weakness in their team. The unity displayed earlier was encouraging, but he was going to need his celestial to get onboard with that unity, too. He sighed, knowing that was just one of the tasks of a team captain.

  Kyle dropped all such thoughts, as Kierra sprinted back to the team yelling, “Incoming.”

  Anything else she might have had to say was lost in a crunching, grinding sound as the massive tunnel they were in seemed to turn like the arm of a clock to a new position.

  The lycan girl easily outpaced the enemies who followed her, but that wasn’t surprising, given their stubby little legs. He had yet to see any dwarves in Verden, immediately assuming that this was what these creatures were.

  They were humanoid, about four feet tall and wider than a human of that height would be. Each stocky form wore black plate armor and carried heavy war hammers or battle axes. As they got closer, he could see their beards. There were only four dwarves, but each had a slightly different shade of beard spilling over the plate armor covering their chests, ranging from jet black to an auburn color.

  What didn’t vary, was the way that each of their eyes was a bright, glowing red. That didn’t seem like a good thing.

  Lash yelled out, “Mor’dverg.”

  “What is a Mor’dverg?” Kyle asked as he summoned his soul bound weapon to his hand. It felt good to hold it, rather than one of the training weapons. It echoed back his essence and sang to him of battles fought, victories won, and how it yearned for more. The song was almost so overwhelming, that he didn’t hear her answer.

  “Mor’dverg are dark dwarves, corrupted by Death Essence. They possess all the skill and stubbornness of dwarven warriors, but they exist on the cusp between life and death and are extremely hard to put down,” Lash answered.

  Gilthan pointed with two fingers at the dark dwarves, “We shall see about that.”

  A lightning bolt leapt off his fingers and blasted into the first of the dwarves. Kyle expected to see the little man blasted from his feet, but the spell seemed to sparkle around the black armor and then fizzled out.

  “Their armor is non-conductive. You will need to hit their flesh to cause them any damage with your lightning. Instead of lightning, try setting up a wind wall to constrain their advance and allow us to fight them one at a time. We need to learn to work together as a team.”

  By the time the instruction was issued, it was too late. The other four Mor’dverg had closed in to engage Skrug. The half-troll set to work with a roar, swinging his reinforced club in a wide sweeping motion. The tactic only halfway worked, as two of his foes were knocked backward, their momentum quashed. One of the others rolled in his armor, almost like an armadillo, and burst to his feet right under the club. The other managed to leap upward, using the weapon as a springboard as it passed underneath him, he vaulted to Skrug’s chest.

  The one that went high slammed an axe blade into the chainmail that covered the troll’s thick shoulder. Skrug cried out in pain as the weapon sheared right through his armor and bit deeply into the flesh underneath. But no matter how sharp the weapon was, the much smaller man wasn’t able to pull it back before Skrug backhanded him clear across the room.

  The rolling ball of the fourth Mor’dverg passed between Skrug’s legs and continued towards Gilthan. The elf’s magical attack had probably marked him as a primary target. At least that is how Kyle would have seen it. Though he was about to be attacked, Gilthan was busy calling upon his storm-dragon nature to create a wall of compressed air, boxing in the two dwarves who had been knocked flat by Skrug’s club.

  Fortunately for the sorcerer, Lash was both a good teammate and much faster than the rolling little menace. As the creature sprang up from the ground, aiming a hammer at Gilthan’s all too pretty face, she sent her trademark weapon out. The glowing whip entangled the hammer’s haft and, with a yank, she pulled the Mor dverg’s strike so far off target that he missed the elf entirely.

  That, of course, caused the dark dwarf to turn his attention on Lash. Kyle reflexively began to step forward to protect her, but she yelled, “Guard our backs. Make sure that no more are coming from behind us.”

  Even as she spoke, she pulled her weapon back and struck again, tangling the dwarf’s hands up with his weapon. Kierra needed no instructions as she struck from the flank. With one hand, she reached out and grabbed her target’s head from behind. He resisted, but not quickly enough. The lycan’s enhanced strength was now enough to force the Mor’dverg’s head back and with the dark dwarf’s neck exposed above its gorget, she drove clawed fingers into its throat.

  Instead of blood pouring out from its destroyed throat, it only seeped out in a slow trickle. The Mor’dverg clearly had what would be a mortal wound for most creatures, but hardly seemed to be bothered by it. The tug of war between he and Lash went back and forth. The dark dwarf’s low center of gravity made him hard to move, even though the former shield maiden was much stronger than s
he looked.

  Kyle worried about them, but knew he had to do his job and let them do theirs. Skrug seemed to be recovering from his wound and had closed in on his opponent, who had managed to get back to its feet after the brutal back hand. Gilthan was focused on maintaining the wall that contained the two others.

  Meanwhile, Lash and Kierra had started tag teaming their target. His armor stopped every attack by the lycan’s claws and even the dagger she pulled from its sheath at her waist. Whatever it was made of, that plate armor was something that Kyle wanted. Lash’s main effort was to keep the creature occupied—which she was doing a good job of, for all that Kierra was having difficulty finishing the creature off.

  Kyle focused on studying the shadows and the areas around them at the edges of the cavern, both in front and behind them. He tried to focus on listening for anyone else coming upon them but kept being distracted by the sounds of battle. His extra senses only extended a short distance out. A curse of frustration escaped his lips as he realized that he needed to get his essence wheel spinning faster, if he expected to be able to detect any threats.

  The question was, could he stay at the ready, aware of his surroundings and even fight, if necessary, while focusing on getting that wheel moving? He decided that it was essential that he try. He whispered loud enough for Hilde to hear, “I’m going to try something. If anything gets too close without me responding, feel free to strike it down.”

  “Try what…,” Hilde began but then he could hear her snap her mouth shut. It was easy to picture her grimace of frustration, even if he couldn’t see her. She obeyed, although he expected she wouldn’t agree with what he was about to do.

  Kyle focused his mind on his now massive essence wheel. Everything was still proportional, but the outer ring was still massive, just as it had remained since he’d absorbed part of the power in his mantle. He focused on getting it moving but then a thought struck him.

  The wheel was still proportional. According to Hilde, this was just a thought construct. It was a method of visualizing the power that human mages used. One which she found odd that he employed.

  But it worked for him, so he hadn’t fought it. But maybe that was now a problem. If this was just a visualization, then did it really have to be so big, so unwieldy?

  Instead of trying to move the wheel faster, Kyle focused on making the entire construct smaller. It needed to be more manageable. It was his essence. It should work for him, rather than control how he handled it. His fury and passion rose as he forced the essence wheel into the shape he wanted.

  That part of him which was buried deep inside said, “I am the war god, reality will bend itself to my whim, or I will beat it into submission. Seize your power and claim your birthright.”

  Kyle feared that voice. He feared losing his own identity, but it wasn’t wrong. This universe had been brought into being by the gods. He knew it was the truth. He felt it to his core. Why should he not shape a mental image of his own power into whatever he wanted?

  The answer was simple—there was no reason not to.

  He found the wheel shrinking down, until it was no more than three feet across. Next, he decided to upgrade it. He visualized a frame supporting the wheel, with a spoke through its center and a track for the wheel to spin in. It would make this easier.

  At the same time, he envisioned a braking mechanism, to enable him to slow or even stop it more easily. He was hardly an engineer, but he had enough basic understanding of the concepts to visualize the construct in his head. Then, by his will, he made that image reality.

  Now he spun the wheel. The track and spoke enabled him to get it going much easier; it accelerated much faster. All those millions of raw essence were now crammed into a much smaller wheel. In his mind’s eye, that made it denser—and thus, it was so. But he saw it moving smoothly and accelerating faster. It reached one rotation per second before Kierra finally managed to rip the Mor’dverg’s head off.

  The power pulsed out of him and his awareness expanded. He felt the exact moment that Skrug ripped the arms off of his small foe. An instant later, Gilthan drove a blade up into its brain. That left only the two trapped foes. Instinctively, Kyle checked on the sorcerer and saw the strain he was under maintaining the wind wall. He would only be able to hold it up for a few more minutes.

  Kyle could do something about that.

  He reached out with his Earth Essence and broke up the stone floor. It was harder to work with than the earthen field in the vineyard had been, but it still responded. When he needed to, Kyle just pushed more Essence into it as he activated his Sucking Earth spell.

  Both of the remaining Mor dverg were pulled into the stone floor up to their waist.

  Then Kyle had what he felt was a stroke of genius. He relaxed his control of the stone around them and allowed it to return to its natural form. As the cavern floor solidified around the trapped dwarves, they became encased in the stone and there was no escape. Their armored arms and gauntleted fists pounded against the rock, but they had even less chance of breaking through the stone than they’d had of cutting through Gilthan’s wind wall with their weapons.

  “Nicely done, team,” Lash called out. “Let’s question the prisoners and then we can regroup and figure out what to do next.”

  “That won’t be necessary. I’ve already scanned the area around us, and we have bigger problems than these two,” Kyle said.

  Even as he spoke, he was sending his empowered senses questing outward. He felt everything around them, and most importantly below them. To say they had bigger problems to worry about was an understatement.

  Chapter 16 - Moving Parts

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Lash was the one to ask the question, but all the others were staring at him just as intently.

  “Several things,” Kyle responded. “For starters, there are more than a hundred of these things down below us. Most of them are in groups of seven or eight. Second, the tunnels appear to be on some type of revolving machinery. I don’t know what to call it exactly, but they slide around, and it looks to be a system that is automated, meaning it happens on a set schedule. We will have to navigate a maze to get out of here.”

  He shrugged. “That, or wait an unknown period of time before this tunnel completes a full revolution and opens back up to the outside.”

  “That isn’t possible. We have to be back for the challenge match in two days,” Lash said.

  “More importantly, how can you know all of this?” Gilthan asked.

  Kyle and Lash exchanged a look.

  She had to have felt his essence levels rocketing up. The aura he was putting off now was not as great as it had been before, but he was still practically shouting his presence to the world around him. He had to assume the only reason the elven sorcerer hadn’t felt it yet, was that he was still caught up in the rush of the battle.

  Lash said, “Open your senses and then look at Kyle again.”

  Gilthan’s normally smug, almost bored expression dropped from his face in an instant. “How? This isn’t possible.”

  He looked from Kyle to Lash and then back to Kyle. “What are you?”

  Kyle grinned at the elf’s reaction. Making eye contact with Lash, he said, “There is some debate about what I am, but for now just trust me when I say that I can sense things at quite a distance. Although, to be fair, I am still learning how to do this.”

  “The first thing you need to learn is how to control your aura. Hopefully, we are far enough from the city, but any mage within several miles will be able to detect you,” Lash said.

  “Any tips on how I control it?”

  “I can only explain how humans do it. I don’t know if there are different methods that elves use or, for that matter, that other races use,” Lash answered.

  “First, I need to tell you the rest of the information, and then we’ll need to come up with a plan. For the time being, we should be safe in this tunnel. There are no Mor’dverg c
lose by, other than our two prisoners,” Kyle said.

  “Oh great, there is more bad news?” Gilthan muttered, still shaking his head every time he looked at Kyle.

  “It appears that the Mor’dverg have a very potent artifact buried at the bottom of this dungeon. They are using it to power what I think is some type of magical construct like a golem—if that is a thing that you have here,” Kyle said.

  “We have golems, but why are you not certain?” Lash asked.

  He shrugged. “I understand what a golem is, but for me they are only creatures from stories. Golems aren’t real where I came from. That, and these senses aren’t quite the same as seeing. I get general impressions, but the more I already know about something, the more details that I get,” Kyle replied. “Oh, and I think the artifact is distorting my ability to sense the area immediately around it.”

  “So, if there is some artifact monster waiting for us, are we leaving now?” Gilthan asked.