The Quizard Mountains: A Dungeon Core Epic (Station Cores Book 2)

by Jonathan Brooks

  Her husband never took his eyes off Rosewyn and the puppies in the center of the room. She had to admit now that she was glad of his attention but at the time she was annoyed at his impatience. Fortunately, he didn’t care about annoying her as long as she was kept safe.

  When the puppies started to wrestle with each other, they drifted out of the center of the room. Rosewyn watched them play with a smile on her face, which swiftly turned to confusion as she tried to stand up to follow the cute little things.

  When she couldn’t move her legs, she looked back to see her legs fully covered by thick bands of braided grass, practically adhering her to the ground. It was over top of her air shield, which she now realized she had let grow smaller as she was entranced by the treacherous little dogs.

  She quickly pulled out a firestick and with a practiced flick she lit it, giving her access to the fire which she immediately set to burning away the bonds that held her down. Unfortunately, it was too late because the puppies had somehow activated a trap door in the center of the room.

  She started to fall inside a small but deep pit, accompanied by the dirt and grass atop of it. Her husband was faster, however, and caught the back of her robe, yanking her and a portion of the dirt below away from danger.

  When they were presumably safe, and her restraints were destroyed, her head had cleared enough to know that what she had just done was strange. Even afterward – despite knowing that the puppies were part of/were responsible for the trap which almost killed her – she still wanted to go over and pick them up and love on them.

  It was only when they were out of sight that she could feel the hold they had on her. Rosewyn apologized profusely to Moxwell, which he took in stride, but she felt bad about what she had done. She wasn’t used to feeling like a damsel in distress – she was usually the one doing the saving. And now her husband had to save her; not just once, but multiple times so far. That’s partially what led to her going all out in the last room.

  “Whatever, you big lug. You know they were cute – maybe after we’re done here I’ll take one back with me. And this time, I’ll make sure I’m not sitting on top of a pit trap,” she replied to his mumbled statement, roundaboutly apologizing again.

  “Well, yeah, they were cute – I’m not going to deny that. And if it would make you happy, I’ll get one for you myself. And…thanks for saving me back there. Even if you had to launch me fifty feet through the air,” he reluctantly thanked her, but with a smile on his face.

  “It was more like forty, quit exaggerating,” she retorted as she stood up.

  “Well, when you consider how far I slid I’m actually cutting it short…,” he started, as they walked down the tunnel towards the next room.

  Chapter 37 – No big deal, really

  Milton was strangely enjoying the byplay between the two Proctans sent to kill him. He felt like a bit of a voyeur, but he couldn’t help it if they did all that in his dungeon. He was impressed at how she finished room 6 and ecstatic how well his Charisma-infused Weinerpups[30] worked in room 5. The trait to increase its Charisma by 400 points was expensive in terms of the available points he was able to use, but the results spoke for themselves.

  The trigger to the trapdoor leading to the pit was cleverly hidden in the lawn – hidden so well that unless you knew to look for it, it effectively blended into the blue sea of grass. Fortunately, the pups were under his control and he could gradually direct them to it; of course, that was only after they trapped their prey.

  They had only one “offensive” capability, apart from their adorableness. Milton was glad that the Flora Manipulation +1 trait he received from the Nature Manipulator weeks ago was able to be used. Unlike the other elemental affinities, the strength of the manipulation was extremely weak; it required all dozen of the Weinerpups working together to effectively restrain someone. He couldn’t wait until he was able to improve it through acquiring more DNA samples – he could see some awesome potential for it in the future. Now, however, he just had to live that long.

  He was less pleased at the results of his Tiny Wolfites[31] from room 4. Although, to be fair, he wasn’t expecting them to be sucked up into a tornado and smashed against the wall.

  Milton designed them to match the theme of rainbow colors used on the previous wall trap, and they certainly delivered on that aspect. They looked larger than they actually were – their fluffy fur was multi-colored and stuck up so that they appeared to be big balls of fluff. When they fell into the room from the ceiling, he thought they looked like a fruity sugared cereal being poured into a cereal bowl. Or like a balloon drop during a celebratory party.

  There were a thousand of them, which put a little strain on his resources; fortunately, they were so small that they only required 5 Bio Units and 0.25 BMUs to make each one. He also found out during the creation process that size mattered.

  Even though he had a plethora of trait points to use on them after recombining a Miniature Pygmy Wolf with a Proctan, Spiderwolf, and Ombre Jaguar, he couldn’t add a Gene Mutation to them. Apparently, their tiny bodies couldn’t support any type of power-based abilities, so there went any hope that they’d be able to utterly devastate anyone they encountered.

  He supposed it made sense. Their bodies were essentially the engines that powered their abilities, and the strain of using it would quickly overwhelm them. He was just slightly disappointed because he was imagining a swarm of tiny insects that could each use a blast of fire or air to destroy their enemies. Oh well, not going to happen now.

  As for room 6, the Bird Warriors[32] performed remarkably. They were a combination of a Big Yellow Bird, Proctan, Spiderwolf, and Ombre Jaguar, which allowed them to have an extra pair of legs and to change their coloring to match the surrounding walls and ceiling. He also doubled their size, added a larger wingspan and stronger muscles, and gave them the ability to boost their Strength – all so they could get strong enough to lift someone and drop them into the pit of spikes far below.

  If it wasn’t for Rosewyn’s (now that he knew their names, he used them in place of “that female Proctan” or “the Caster”) insane ability to manipulate the air around her, it would’ve worked. They even managed to delay Moxwell long enough that if it wasn’t for his wife extricating him from the situation he would’ve ran out of time. All in all, everything had gone well so far in the dungeon – if only the first real invaders weren’t so “over-leveled” for it.

  They were about to enter the last fully-defended room – room 8 had a few defenders in it, and traps of course, but he didn’t have enough time to create and deploy enough to fill it up. The other rooms leading to his Core had traps in place and some were even high-tech; however, they wouldn’t be as effective without some sort of backup.

  He was happy to see that, although they were not seriously hurt or looked to want to retreat, he had made the invading Proctans use a good portion of their power pool, even aided by Power Potions. If he was lucky, the traps would be enough to reduce their power even further, hopefully convincing them to give up. He wouldn’t mind, really, if they ended up dying, but he didn’t feel that it was necessary for his and his friends’ continued survival.

  The married couple had already passed through half of the room with ease, aided by Rosewyn’s Earth affinity. The room was divided in half by a wall of Weightonite going right through the middle, with the last portion furthest from the entrance providing a gap in the wall that allowed access to the other side. However, in order to get there, they had to navigate their way over tall columns of sandstone that snaked its way toward the end.

  It wouldn’t be all that hard if it wasn’t for the Quadger Buddies[33] he had stationed at their bases, slicing into the columns and making them fall. Their claws were perfect for slicing away portions of the “soft” sandstone; in a few quick strokes, they could destroy the base of the pillars and bring it tumbling down. Although the floor wasn’t covered in spikes – Milton thought the number of spikes throughout the dungeon so
far was already more than enough, at least for now – it was covered in dirt, which the Quadger Buddies could quickly burrow through to hide. They could then surprise anyone who fell from the columns, collapsing the ground underneath them and attacking them while they were still recovering from falling down the hole. At least, that was how it was supposed to work.

  With her outrageous master Earth affinity, Rosewyn was able to repair the columns after they were sliced apart by melding the stone together again. After he saw this, Milton had all his nearby units converge on the same column and go to town on it. She countered with an increased use of her power, fixing the stone before it could collapse completely.

  Most likely realizing that they had a limited time before her power was depleted, the two invaders rushed along the columns to stay ahead of his Quadgers, who – despite being made from a Clawed Badger, a Proctan, a Scaly Bear, and a Quizard – couldn’t keep up with them. They were inherently slow to begin with and the traits they received to get faster mostly benefitted them while digging and moving underground, so a footrace aboveground was not their ideal situation.

  Rosewyn and Moxwell had finished the first half of the room with relative ease and were heading into what Milton liked to call his first Mini-boss encounter. His Bioconversion Laboratory was designed to create larger Combat Units, but even then, it had a limit to the size it could create. Creating a fully-grown Gargantuan Anaconda, for example, simply wasn’t possible. Fortunately, he had learned a little from the making his Picow Livestock – he could create a “baby” boss and let it mature into a formidable foe. He was still tweaking the growth and aging rates; they wouldn’t live past a week right now, but he was hoping with more time and experimentation that he would be able to prolong their life without it taking too long for them to mature.

  Luckily, the two Proctans had come right when the boss was at the prime of his—

  “Hey, uh…The Milton? I’ve got a small, tiny, little problem…”

  Finally! He’s back – hopefully he can get return here quickly with what remained of his Raid Group and come through the backdoor. That way, I can send his Combat Units to reinforce some of the later rooms…wait, what problem?

  “I’ve got problems of my own, Brint – where have you been? We’re currently being invaded by two super-powerful individuals sent by Cordpower and they’re already in room 7! I need your remaining Combat Units to help out as soon as possible.”

  “Well, about that. It’s only me and the Qwizard I’m riding right now. We ran into a small…situation. All my other Units are dead – killed by something I can’t even explain. The problem is…well…it’s following me right now and I don’t know how to shake it,” his voice sounded strained and exhausted.

  “Hold on, what? What the heck did you do? No, wait, don’t answer that – I’ll check your Qwizards’ recording.”

  He didn’t have time to listen to an explanation, so he ramped up his Processing Speed to quickly look through what the Qwizard had seen over the last day. He was glad that his stats had improved so much, because what would normally have taken hours to go over only ended up taking a few seconds to get caught up.

  Just like Brint when he saw it, what Milton saw shocked him to his Core.

  The size of the creature following them, along with its speed and strength, was so scary and unbelievable that it made what Rosewyn and Moxwell were doing look like child’s play. It was on a whole other level.

  He knew from the Qwizards’ recordings that they had gone deep, deep underground, but as it hadn’t observed what was down there, he didn’t know what Brint had seen. From what he could determine, only Brint and the Quassassin had seen it. He tried to locate the body of the Quassassin and he found it; unfortunately, it had been so beaten up that the Neurological Control Unit was damaged enough that he couldn’t retrieve anything of substance.

  “What did you see down there, Brint? I don’t have a recording of it.”

  Brint was silent for a few moments before he responded dispassionately, “Only a hellish nightmare that will haunt my dreams for the rest of my life. No big deal, really.”

  Milton could tell that his flippant attitude was some sort of emotional defense mechanism – he used to use them all the time when he played games and got thoroughly destroyed by the competition. Even though he was crushed internally, he played it off to his online friends as a learning experience and that he was fine. And, ultimately, it was a learning experience – but he still felt cut-up inside.

  All of which meant that something must’ve been so disturbing that Brint still didn’t know how to process it. Milton would get to the bottom of it eventually, but right now he needed to help his friend.

  “Head to the backdoor and seal it up tight. I doubt even that behemoth could get through a foot-thick door of Weightonite. Not to mention that he probably wouldn’t even fit in the tunnel.”

  Milton had installed a way for Brint to get in and out of the dungeon when he was done hunting for the day. There were too many traps and ways he could inadvertently get hurt throughout the rest of the dungeon, so it was just safer for everyone if he could get straight to the Core Room without worrying about dying. Whisp had made sure that the backdoor was both quite a distance away from the main entrance and was rigged to seal itself up if someone accidentally found it.

  He kept an eye on his friend as he raced ahead of what he was going to call a Bearilla – a mix between a bear and a gorilla – since its body was more like the larger ape than a monkey. He couldn’t see it behind them, since the Qwizard was focused on where it was running, but he could hear the closely-grown trees behind them being systematically knocked down as it followed. They seemed to be gaining a bit of a lead as the Bearilla had to clear the trees away from its massive frame, but they couldn’t stop if they wanted to keep ahead of it. He sent out one of his sensor orbs to rendezvous with Brint, so that he could get a better view of everything.

  There wasn’t much he could do for the fleeing Proctan until he was back in the dungeon, so he turned his attention back to Rosewyn and Moxwell inside room 7. They were cautiously approaching the strangely-empty half of the room that was filled with 25 feet of loose dirt. As he watched them, he couldn’t feel anything but numb knowing what was coming in their direction.

  If the Bearilla got into the dungeon, he didn’t know how he was going to stop it.

  Chapter 38 – The bigger threat

  The first part of the room had been interesting. It felt good to Rosewyn to be able to flex her Earth affinity, after not having anything to use it on so far in that place. Well, other than using it to lift the ceiling off Moxwell in the first room, of course. She was used to being able to manipulate her surroundings, which usually meant that the dirt and stone near her was a major source of defense as well as offense. Without being able to affect the stone around her, however, she felt as if a part of her was cut off.

  Therefore, it came as a relative relief when the beasts near the bottom of the sandstone columns tried to cut them down. It was relatively easy to repair the gouges they made with their extremely-sharp claws, and she only strained a little once they started attacking their pathway with reinforcements. Eventually, she split her concentration and power – which siphoned off even more of her pool – to both repair and start to connect the pillars they still had to traverse on their way to the end.

  The thin bridges she created by flowing the tops of the columns together shortened them a bit, but it also increased their speed since they didn’t have to jump from one pillar to another. It put quite a bit of strain on even her concentration to do three things at once: repair, build bridges, and run without falling off the edges. Fortunately, Moxwell eventually picked her up so that she could eliminate one thing, making it much easier to do what needed to be done.

  Within minutes, they had reached the end and they stepped off the last column onto a dirt floor. To their left, they could see that the wall extending down most of the room was actually a divider separatin
g an even larger room into two equal halves. Behind them, she could sense the beasts that had been trying to knock the columns down bury themselves into the dirt and quickly tunnel their way towards the end of the new half of the room, near where she could see was an exit.

  Using her detection field, she could “see” through the dirt, which turned out to be nearly 25 feet deep. She could also feel a large concentration of body heat signatures where the tunnels the creatures made led. She couldn’t tell how many of them there were, because they all seemed to be bunched up together – however, it seemed like a lot.

  She thought about using a large portion of her remaining power pool to “crush” the whole lot of them, but she had already used her last Power Potion to nearly top her off and she didn’t know what was still in store for them after this. Moxwell still had a Potion available if she needed it, but she didn’t want him to run out either if she could help it.

  Instead, she let her husband know what she sensed and to be ready for anything. As they cautiously made their way down the curiously empty (other than dirt) room, she could detect movement near where she could sense the greater mass of body heat. When they neared the center of the room, she felt as the smaller concentrations of heat quickly tunneled through the dirt, spreading apart and surrounding them, albeit underground.

  She cautioned Moxwell to stop, but he had felt the vibrations through his enhanced perception and had already done so. When Rosewyn looked again, she saw that she was mistaken on one part – the greater part of body heat was still ahead of them, and it was coming from just one creature. It wasn’t close enough to them yet to be a threat; however, as she was concentrating on it, the others surrounding them suddenly moved in closer.