The intact and perfectly-round cutout from the ceiling descended like a hammer as it crushed everything beneath it. The amount of damage the thin slice of stone caused was unimaginable for its size, but the result more than proved that it was heavier than anything he’d ever seen before.
The ceiling’s impact on the jagged stone was so substantial that it practically turned the “softer” stone into gravel and dust. For the two party members (and three furry woodland creatures) caught underneath its surface, their bodies were essentially flattened and liquified – at least that’s how it appeared as blood leaked out from underneath the stone in all directions.
Chapter 15 – And then there were two
Antone and Gwyndle just stood there, shocked at the turn of events that caused the death of two of their party members. He wasn’t really close to either of them, but they were there under his suggestion and he felt responsible for them. Even his recent infatuation and loyalty to the Nature Manipulator standing next to him couldn’t change this feeling.
He had failed them and let them die. It was his fault they were there in the first place and now he had gotten them killed. It didn’t matter that this place killed them – he was the one that brought them here.
This despair seemed to snap him out of the fugue-like state his mind had been in lately. With sudden insight, he figured out what had happened – that bitch Gwyndle had done something to control him. He wasn’t sure what it was exactly, but he was sure it probably had something to do with why she was on the run. Just like Klareece’s situation, using your ability on someone else was a punishable crime; if she had been using whatever this was on someone – controlling them without their knowledge or permission – it meant that if she was discovered she’d most likely be put to death.
Antone was so pissed that he wanted to strike out at her, just like that girl back home that had laughed at him when she saw what he was “working with”. However, he restrained himself – he needed her help to get out of there alive. He decided that he would play along with her for the moment and kill her later when they were safely outside this hell-hole.
Unfortunately, the collapse of the column and subsequent crushing of their party members resulted in a blockage of the way back. The round “ceiling” was shifted in such a way that it was difficult – if not impossible – to climb over the rubble. He tried moving it out of the way but was unable to shift it more than an inch even when he used his ability to jack his strength up to his maximum. If we still had a Caster, I’m sure they would be able to move the stone with ease, he thought. They were going to have to keep going and hope they found another way out.
He didn’t look at Gwyndle or say anything to her because if he did he didn’t think he’d be able to stop himself from wiping the smug look off her face. He was a little shocked that she didn’t look worried at their predicament, so her false sense of bravado was enough to spur him on to find a way out.
Gwyndle kept close enough to him that he felt confident in her backup, even if it was only to keep her “pet” alive long enough to leave with the riches he figured was down here. If they did find something, he was sure she wouldn’t hesitate to try to kill him as soon as she thought she could get away with it.
Now that he was wary of additional attackers, he kept an eye on the columns they passed between. Twice he noticed small shapes huddled up against the pillars; they blended in so well that if he wasn’t looking for them he probably wouldn’t have seen them with a casual glance. Gwyndle showed her expertise in her ability by utilizing the plant-based tentacle monster to ambush the ambushers before they could act. Long vines shot into the air and snatched them off, while she made sure to be careful to avoid hitting the delicately placed stone columns. Completely wrapped up in the strong plant appendages without the ability to move their arms – and consequently utilize their long claws – they were easily crushed to death as she constricted the vine-tentacles.
He managed to bypass two more traps as he barely noticed the pressure-plate outlines for them on the floor. After nearly ten minutes of nerve-racking and cautious travel through the room, he was starting to feel the strain on his power as he had kept his enhanced vision running the entire time. He knew that Gwyndle was feeling the same because maintaining her tentacle plant was power-consumptive as well.
Fortunately, he saw the exit to another tunnel just past two more columns. He wanted to run for it and get out of this dangerous room; instead, he continued to walk carefully and keep his eye on his surroundings. He stepped over another potential floor-trigger along the ground, this one larger than the others he had seen. He stepped around another pillar of jagged stone and saw the yawning exit only ten feet ahead of him.
That’s when eight of the furry critters jumped out from behind the column, previously hidden from his and the Nature Manipulator’s sight. Three of them headed straight for him while the other five attacked Gwyndle and her multi-limbed plant. Antone choked up on the handle of his battleax so that he wouldn’t accidentally hit one of the unstable columns and used it to slice into the closest furry creature that approached. It nimbly dodged out of the way of his axe blade, but as the one behind it attempted to attack him when it perceived an opportunity, he practically cut it in half on his backswing.
The third furry little bastard jumped up toward the wall and rebounded off. As it flew toward his face, Antone bent himself backward in a move that left him with a muscle spasm in his back – but it also had the added benefit of narrowly escaping the deadly claws of the creature. When he straightened back up, he brought his axe around to where the jumping beast landed and split it in half.
Fiery lines of pain flashed over his back as the remaining creature caught him full on his back with its dagger-like appendages. His scraps of leather armor were fortunately just tough enough that he was able to survive the attack with relatively minor wounds, but he backed up as he tried to regroup and locate the wily animal.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Gwyndle holding her own against the five who had attacked her. Two of them were dead on the ground already, but the remaining three were working together to methodically reduce the effectiveness of the vine-tentacles by slicing up anything that came near. She was backing up, staying out their range as she used more of her rapidly-diminishing power to regenerate her plant defender.
He turned his attention back to his own problems. He couldn’t see the last creature that had gotten a good hit on his back as he looked around for it. He needed to finish it off quickly, so he could help with the ones attacking Gwyndle. He didn’t want her to die…yet. They still needed to get out of there.
He was thinking that it must have run away, or at least run to help backup its friends in the fight against the Manipulator, when he caught a glimpse of something moving at the top of his vision. I forgot to look up!
A cold shiver ran through his bones as he stared at the columns surrounding him. Instead of the single remaining creature that he expected to find, he instead saw at least twenty of them staring back at him as they braced themselves against the stone pillars. He looked back at Gwyndle, hoping to find that she had pulled out a victory against the three attacking her. Instead, another ten of the creatures were surrounding her and as he watched she could see four of them launch themselves at her unprotected back.
She went down under the onslaught, blood and viscera flying everywhere as the plant monster attempted to fend them off. He got a small amount of satisfaction when the plant stopped moving altogether, informing him that she had finally succumbed to the attacks of the deadly furry animals. His smile faded as his own situation hit him.
He backed up as the twenty small creatures lithely jumped to the ground and corralled him into an empty space between four pillars. He frantically looked around for an escape, but he couldn’t see any way out – the attackers who had taken out Gwyndle were penning him in from behind. The only thing he could think of was to take his chances by collapsing as many of the columns around him as
he could and hopefully avoid being squished as the ceiling fell on the army of assaulting creatures.
He took a step back and planted his back foot as he prepared to launch himself at the nearest column when the stone underneath it shifted downwards. He heard another faint click and quickly looked around at the nearby walls so that he could avoid another spear – but he didn’t see anything. That was when he realized the click came from above.
He looked up just in time to have two long, sharpened slivers of black and white-speckled stone impale themselves through his throat and open mouth with very little resistance. Two others impacted his left and right shoulders, their combined weight dragging him down as if he had just had a house dropped on his chest. As he hit the floor – alive but just barely – he saw one last sliver fell as if from the heavens to slide effortlessly through his forehead as he thought, well…fuck.
Chapter 16 – Clean-up
“Hmm, that last trap was supposed to have all the Weightonite spikes drop at the same time. I’m going to have to redesign it so that it’s more effective – even if it did work out,” Whisp said professionally as she received the blow-by-blow as both Milton and Brint had watched via the in-room sensor orbs. He was really going to have to find some way for her to see what was going on in the dungeon instead of getting a second-hand accounting.
As for Milton, he was both surprised and thrilled at the results the first room of their dungeon had on the four invaders. He did kind of stack the deck against them at the end, but he figured he couldn’t be too careful when it came to their own safety. He normally wouldn’t have that many Combat Units in there at one time – he even had another 25 or so in reserve – so it wasn’t the best test of the rooms’ defenses. He didn’t care, though – it worked.
And the traps Whisp had designed worked like a charm as well; even if the last one didn’t execute the way she’d wanted, it still was effective. Although, he could see some potential weak points in the room design and ways he could exploit it if he were the one going up against it. The major one was if someone stood inside the tunnel entrance and used some sort of ranged projectile to collapse all the columns initially, that would kill all his Units inside and set off every prepared trap. There was a possibility that they wouldn’t be able to reach every stone pillar, but if even most them were taken down if would severely limit the rooms’ deadliness.
It was a very, very remote possibility that someone would have enough knowledge and foresight to do that, though. If it did happen, Milton needed to think of a backup plan. He didn’t have the time to do it now, however, because he needed to clean up the room and reset it back to full functionality. As well as finishing up the rest of his—their—dungeon.
The repair and restoration of the room as well as the reloading of sprung traps took less than fifteen minutes with the use of just four drones. Things were quite different from when he first started; at the time, Milton didn’t have the drones to spare for resetting traps whenever they were sprung. Now, however, if he needed to, he could station a few drones near each room to help clean up the mess.
Speaking of mess, the aftermath of crushing the Healer and Elemental Caster was disgusting and disturbing altogether. Not only were they flattened masses of flesh, they were unrecognizable as former Proctans. Fortunately, there was enough of them (as well as the other two) to obtain some new Gene Mutations.[15]
Milton now had access to a Fire Affinity, which, like Air Affinity, allowed his Combat Units to control fire in short bursts. He wasn’t exactly sure if this translated to being able to breathe fire, hurl fireballs, or just light a campfire, but the possibility seemed intriguing.
In addition to Fire, he also received the option to grant one of his creations the ability to manipulate plants. From what he had seen the Nature Manipulator do both topside and in his first dungeon room, he was excited to see what his Units could do. He could envision a room full of innocuous-looking plants coming alive as they were controlled by the creatures they were protecting.
Unfortunately, his previous experiments using Air Affinity with one of his Combat Units was less than impressive. He had tested it out with another squirrel (normal-sized) since it was the cheapest in terms of Bio Mass and the results left a lot to be desired. He had made the squirrel super-smart in terms of Intelligence and Wisdom, so that each use of its affinity was the best it could get. Despite that, only small but powerful gusts of wind were able to be created.
It was enough to give them a boost to reach something high up and when used against another squirrel it knocked them backwards a few feet. Against a Proctan, it wouldn’t be more than an annoyance.
He did practice removing air from a spot as if it was in a vacuum, but it only worked marginally. If someone could hold their breath for more than ten seconds or moved more than a foot away, then they would be fine against an attack like that.
The same sorry result also occurred when he tried to a create a slash of hardened and sharpened air. When used against the same squirrel as before, it was more like a firm slap than a knife of air capable of cutting something in half.
Overall, however the possibilities of them getting stronger by accumulating more DNA samples was encouraging – as evidenced by the increased magnitude of his Strength Boost and Self-Regeneration (now both +2). Not only did Strength Boost double the bonus Strength and duration – it stayed at the same Power cost. Self-Regeneration doubled the amount healed per minute (20) but the cost of that also stayed the same.
From what he could tell – since ALANNA had no additional information due to it being a whole new discovery – his Units’ abilities would only get more powerful as time went on and he was able to “acquire” additional victi—samples. He was still slightly conflicted that he was obtaining these Gene Mutations through the deaths of Proctans, but those he had acquired them from were not any that he really felt bad about. The first three had viciously attacked him and his friends, while the last quartet (at least based on their overheard conversations) were on the run from the authorities. Sure, Brint and Whisp were on the run – but that was different.
The last Gene Mutation he had access to now was one for a Perception Boost, which he guessed came from the scout-type guy with the battleaxe. He was able to spot difficult to find tracks through the forest as well as identifying some traps in the first dungeon room, which made sense if he had a special ability to do that. At the moment, the only advantage he could see from having that particular mutation would be if he wanted to replace his existing squirrel scouts with ones that could see better in an emergency.
Before he told Brint and Whisp it was safe, Milton had said squirrels bounce from tree to tree throughout his entire territory to make sure there were no more threats incoming. It took more than an hour, but it eased his mind a little when they didn’t find anything out-of-the-ordinary. Once they were out, fed, and rested after the strenuous ordeal of the sudden attack, they got back to work on finishing room #2. Milton went back to his work on the Farm.
The drones he had left digging the massive cavern he was creating were making great progress. He now had a relatively good stockpile of Basic Earth as well as an ever-growing Basic Gravel reserve. They were even able to find a small amount of Basic Metal, but it was less than 100 units – not nearly enough to sustain his need for the resource.
He switched his attention back to the drones still mining up north, only to find that the deposit they were working on was almost depleted. There was only another hour or so worth of mining to do before they were done, which caused Milton to panic as the only reliable source of BMUs nearby was gone. He had been getting quite a bit from Brint during their metal-Power Potion exchanges, but, now that that avenue of trade wasn’t available anymore, another viable source needed to be found.
Although – from what he could see – his drones had quite the stockpile at the northern mine. Once he got it back home, he expected it to amount to just over 60,000 BMUs. Not a massive amount, but it…might be just enoug
h to get by until he could assault the Quizard Mountains. Either way, it was looking more and more like exploration was going to be more of a necessity than a long-term goal.
Milton needed to build up his reserves of both BMUs and Bio Mass – each of which seemed dependent on each other. He had a good thing going with his Farm and it would provide much-needed biological material in the long-run; however, until he had more Power Generators it would be a long process. The length of time it would take to find and acquire enough BMUs to fully equip his farm with the generators was something they didn’t have.
There was no hope for it – he was going to have to look elsewhere for enough material to create a small army.
He needed to make sure that he didn’t short-change it either. He wasn’t about to send in a small squad of three superior Combat Units, only to find that they got overwhelmed by 20 or more Quizards. Or even something worse; he didn’t know what was in there past the first initial tunnel. He didn’t want to waste their lives (and their Bio Mass) on a simple excursion, only to find that he didn’t take every necessary precaution to make sure he could overwhelm whatever was in there.
He was done with half-assed preparation.
The fact that he cursed, even if it was in his own thoughts, meant that he was serious. He knew he messed up before and did things that allowed him to barely scrape by – he did it before when he was alive on Earth and he continued to do it after. He never applied himself to improve his lot in life and only made enough money to stay off the streets. If he had worked on making money, finding friends, and generally improving his living situation he might not have been abducted in the first place. He didn’t know that for sure, but he liked to think that things could’ve been different.
The Quizard Mountains: A Dungeon Core Epic (Station Cores Book 2) Page 12