The Third Realm

by Michael Chatfield

  Matt heard those words and his eyes jumped out of his skull as he stared at Erik and Rugrat in alarm.

  Erik and Rugrat grinned as they walked, looking like old veterans once again walking into the breach.

  “Don’t worry—it should be fun. Probably make some Experience and coin on it,” Rugrat said, using his sound transmission as well as he turned back around.

  Erik was in the lead, casting a spell through his feet to make sure that they didn’t walk into any monster ambushes or walk into a swamp.

  Matt looked back to the other group but they were already starting to pack up and leave.

  “You coming?” Rugrat asked, seeing him lagging behind.

  “On my way,” Matt said. “So you said that you need to get somewhere. Were you looking for this dungeon?”

  “Nah. We need to get to—what’s that place called?”

  “Khusai,” Erik supplied.

  “Yeah, Erik isn’t just a healer—he’s an alchemist as well. Made it through the first round of some application thing, needs to pass through the second part and then onto the Alchemist Association proper. Though we kind of offended someone. See, Erik here is actually good at something other than punching the fuck out of monsters. He placed second, upset the lord of the city’s son, so he—well, he chased us, probably wanted to do the whole I’m an arrogant prick rah rah, gimme my place ’cause I wanna be a big alchemist!” Rugrat’s voice turned to that of baby speak. “Yeah, so we got out of there, but now we need to get to Khusai.”

  “Well, we can use caravans, though sounds like this prick might be looking for you. Ran into it myself in the First Realm—when I had a knife on me, some fucker wanted to steal it. Keep your shit hidden. Anyway, there are also aerial rides that we can book from some of the cities, using those to travel to Khusai faster.”

  “See, I knew it would be good bringing him along!” Rugrat said.

  Matt rolled his eyes and smiled. It felt good to be with people from Earth, to have a connection with people again. He had moved between caravans and the realms, wanting to explore and see more. He knew that the Ten Realms wasn’t kind and he knew that he’d face a lot of danger in the future, but he’d have a good time doing it.

  ***

  “How are your Mana channels?” Erik asked as they were walking.

  Matt looked to them in question as Rugrat responded.

  “Had to use the rifle because they were strained to the limit,” Rugrat admitted, clenching his fist. “I think I tore them a bit. I was able to heal them, but there was scarring left. I’m not able to heal them with just spells now,” Rugrat said.

  “We’ll find a way to fix it,” Erik promised. Matt nodded as well.

  “Well, I like to be the bearer of good news: I can feel concentrated Earth-attribute Mana up ahead, not far now,” Rugrat said.

  Matt readied his crossbow as Erik circulated his Mana, pushing forward.

  It wasn’t long until he felt the change in Mana.

  Using it as a guide, they moved forward, finding a large rock formation that looked as though it had been split into two. Swamp water drained into a hole that was revealed in the middle of it.

  Where the swamp and that opening met, one could feel the Mana interacting. The pure Earth-attribute Mana was absorbing the Water-attribute Mana while the Wood element Mana was trying to break up and insert its power into the Earth Mana.

  Although on a Mana sense it was chaos, in the middle of the swamp, an island of plants were flourishing, cleansing the heavy Water- and Wood-attribute Mana. The Earth-attribute Mana was stronger and it was advancing more but they were coexisting on the edges.

  “As more of the Earth-attribute Mana is released, this swamp will be transformed and changed into a forest.” Erik looked into the hole. He could see light inside.

  “We’ll make entry and see what we can find. We’ll see how far we can get. Then, Rugrat, I want you to use your Dungeon Sense, find us where that dungeon core is. Once we have that, we can control the dungeon or destroy it.”

  “Sounds good,” Rugrat said.

  Matt looked at the forest that was growing before focusing back on Erik.

  “I can summon a shadow wolf to go inside and scout it out. It can’t report anything, but it’ll update our maps. There is a chance that it will be discovered, though,” Matt said.

  “Worth it to get some extra recon,” Rugrat said. “Tight enclosed space.”

  “Do it. The more we know, the better,” Erik said.

  Matt started the summoning ritual and the vapor-like shadow wolf appeared.

  “All right, Sally, go and check out that dungeon over there for me, will you?” Matt asked.

  “Look, I know that Peter is a bully, but he’s your brother, all right?” Matt talked to the summon as he scratched behind her ears.

  She let out a small yelp.

  “I know. I’ll be harder on him. I need your help for something really important. You did so well with the Elkta. I want you to go into that opening there, go and find what’s on the other side. Could you do that for me?” Matt’s tone changed to dog talk as he gave Sally heavy petting.

  “Yes. Who’s a good wolf? Yes, you are.”

  Finally Sally walked off toward the opening, disappearing into the shadows before heading into the dungeon.

  “So, summons—they like real creatures?” Rugrat asked.

  “Well, you can go to certain holy places and find spirits there that can be summoned, or you can purchase them from different stores. Some people use them as beasts to do their bidding. They can, but then they don’t grow. With summons, you can use certain materials to help them grow, but they can also grow by themselves if they want to.

  “They help me out and I give them Mana, but I don’t need to treat them like slaves. Summoned creatures leave once their owner is killed, but after some time, they want to act upon the world. They need a person to supply them Mana and summon them from wherever they are.”

  Mat pulled out his map and was looking at it. As Sally moved through the dungeon, the map updated.

  Sally went to the right. There was a locked door and then a portcullis.

  “I can supply her enough power to change into vapor and enter the room, but then I won’t be able to support her long. And if there’s another door, I don’t think I’d be able to help her get past it,” Matt said.

  “Let’s backtrack and see what we can find,” Rugrat said.

  Sally retraced her steps and went through the halls. She reached a door. It took some time but she forced it open and entered a room. There were no other exits and she left the room, turning right. She traced out some more corridors before she reached another door. She passed it and entered the room.

  “There’s danger! There must be something in there!” Matt said.

  “Call her back. Get her to get the creature to follow,” Erik said.

  “We’ll bring it out into the swamp. It’ll be weaker without the Earth attribute. I’ll get it into the swamp water. Rugrat, Matt—you hit it. I’ll keep it tied up and try to give you openings.”

  “Take this.” Rugrat passed Matt a storage ring with loaded crossbows.

  “Thanks.”

  “Just don’t shoot me in the ass!” Erik moved to the split rocks, pressing his back to the wall. “Give me a description of it as you see it,” Erik called out.

  “Got it!” Rugrat had moved to a new vantage point as Matt moved off to the other side with a loaded crossbow.

  Erik tried to calm his breathing. Everything sounded as if it were too loud and that whatever was coming was sure to find out about him.

  He circulated Mana through his body, ready to unleash it all in a moment. His muscles coiled, ready to act.

  Sally flew out of the opening. A screeching noise could be heard.

  Erik was reminded of pterodactyls for some reason.

  There was a scraping noise as the beast seemed to have missed the doorway.

  Erik felt the ground shaking as it ran for
ward.

  “Looks like a fucking T-rex but has a face like a vacuum cleaner. Five talons. Lots of fucking teeth. And three eyes, top and both sides! Green!” Rugrat yelled out.

  The beast shot out from the rocks, scraping the walls with its large body.

  Erik rushed out at the beast but it seemed to know about him. Its barbed tail whipped out and hit Erik in the chest, sending him flying, smashing into a tree and rolling into the swamp.

  It lost interest with the wolf and jumped with its two powerful legs.

  Erik used his feet to push back, sliding through the mud and grime.

  Rugrat and Matt opened fire.

  One of the talons from its umbrella-like mouth hit his leg but the armor saved Erik as he was able to scramble up to his feet.

  A grenade appeared in his hand and he tossed it. The creature seemed to know what it was; using its tail, it smacked the grenade away and hit Erik again.

  It turned to face Rugrat and Matt. Its leg muscles contracted but Sally came in, latching onto the creature’s back leg, making it stumble forward instead of jump.

  Erik had been tossed in the direction of the grenade and was scrambling through the waist-thick mud.

  Matt was having a hard time landing hits. Rugrat missed a few times as well. The grenade went off, a fountain of mud and gas.

  Erik rolled out of the mud as the beast’s talons tore into Sally, making her howl before Matt canceled the summon.

  Anger seemed to make him shoot better as more of his arrows hit the beast that was bleeding from several hits on its scaled hide.

  The beast let out a high-pitched roar, its umbrella-like mouth shaking into the sky.

  Erik’s eardrums ruptured and blood came out of them as the world turned painful and confusing, his balance thrown off.

  He fought to try to keep where he was going, throwing healing powder around his head in a bid to get it in his ear. He used Focused Heal and tossed Simple Ranged Heal at Matt. Thankfully, it was a lock-on spell and reached him as he was screaming out, rolling on the ground.

  Erik jumped and grabbed the creature’s neck. “Hallowed Ground!” Erik called out. He needed the words to focus his mind. The spell appeared on the ground underneath him and the beast as he lurched to the side, trying to drag the beast down with him.

  It held upright, stumbling but staying up as flames appeared on its body.

  It tried to shake Erik off, its neck going from side to side.

  Erik flushed his body with Mana, enhancing his power as he jumped up and threw his legs forward, causing the beast to flip on its side.

  Its legs clawed on the ground as Rugrat fired into the beast’s stomach.

  Poison could be seen spreading from the wounds. The beast fought harder as it seemed to know what was coming.

  Erik was eye to eye with it, seeing the blind rage and fury in its eyes.

  Erik rolled off and punched forward. The beast was just pulling its head up when it was met with a fistful of Mana Detonation.

  Erik’s newfound hearing disappeared again as the beast’s head slammed into the ground and bounced back up, leaving a crater behind. Its eye shattered as the rampant Mana covered its body, poisoning it.

  Erik had held back Mana Detonation when fighting the Elkta. He didn’t know the people in Matt’s group and he wanted to have an extra weapon against them.

  Now he used it for the first time with his new armor and higher level. The power was incredible. Used in such close proximity, it was devastating.

  Under his fist, the beast’s head deformed as Erik grew stronger, the beast being burned by the Hallowed Ground as Erik was healed by it.

  “It’s dead! Erik!” Rugrat called out as Erik’s hearing started to come back.

  He felt the flow of Experience enter him as he looked at the beast’s tombstone.

  “Fucking dinosaurs?” Erik asked in an alarmed voice.

  “Well, I guess. Kind of. I’m not a dinosaur tamer,” Rugrat said.

  “Whoever tries to tame one of these is insane, or a goddamn legend with brass balls.” Erik stepped backward, dismissing his Hallowed Ground as his Mana started to come back at a rapid rate.

  Matt also came down from the hill. Blood showed in his ears and he had an embarrassed look on his face. “Sorry, guys.”

  “Don’t be. Shit happens. Didn’t know that it would have some kind of uber shit eardrum bursting attack,” Rugrat said.

  “What the Southerner said.” Erik checked his storage rings. “Thankfully we were able to get the biggest damn storage rings. Still, we’ll need to break this up a bit to fit in the smaller ones.”

  “You think you could call Sally up again and have her look through passed where ole t-rexy came from?” Rugrat asked.

  “It’ll take forty minutes before the cooldown is over. Based off the map, though, it doesn’t look like there are any rooms in there,” Matt said.

  “So we’ve got a locked room and one with a portcullis. What’s the word?” Rugrat said.

  “Store this hunk of junk, then we get moving.” Erik took off his helmet and wiped mud off his face and some that had gone down his neck as best as he could.

  “The hell is that?” Erik stopped his actions, hearing wings beating.

  Rugrat looked where Erik was and pulled up his rifle, checking with his scope.

  “I don’t see—” There was a lion’s roar in the distance, followed by other weaker roars.

  “I hear something.”

  “Thank you, Captain Obvious. No wonder you only passed high school.” Erik pulled his helmet on.

  “Passed tenth grade—well, that’s what the recruiter said. They’re really good at making things up and putting you in uniform.” Rugrat’s tone turned from bragging to dark mutterings.

  “And look at you, upstanding citizen now.” Erik shot him a grin.

  Rugrat gave him the middle finger as Matt smiled.

  Erik checked his notifications quickly.

  ==========

  281,838/700,000 EXP till you reach Level 26

  ==========

  “Now let’s go and see what’s down there.” Erik led the way, with Matt behind him and Rugrat taking up the rear.

  They went through the opening, finding it joined near to where three other corridors connected to one another. They went to the left, where the beast had come from.

  ==========

  You have entered the dungeon: Temple of Earth’s Divinity

  ==========

  They continued on, finding an empty room with marks on the floor where the beast lived.

  “There is something here.” Matt pointed at the ground.

  Erik and Rugrat moved forward. Rugrat covered Erik as he cleared the dirt away with a shovel.

  He hit something metal after just digging a few shovel flips to excavate the dirt floor. He scraped more dirt away, revealing a box.

  Pulling it up, they checked it for traps.

  “Looks clean,” Matt said.

  Erik used the throwing spear from the doorway to open the chest. He broke the lock with it and knocked the top off.

  He looked inside to find four scrolls. “Looks like spell scrolls.” Erik held them out to Matt.

  “This is a Detect Undead scroll, Magic Aura scroll and Knock... holy shit.” Matt held the last scroll, eyes wide. “This is an Arcane Enchant scroll.”

  “What do they do?” Rugrat asked.

  “Arcane Enchant can enchant a weapon with a free enchantment slot. The result is randomized from a dungeon but this is a Journeyman-level enchantment. This, I’ve only seen it twice and it was being sold by the Blue Lotus. They can only be found in dungeons and although they can give you a low enchantment, there is a possibility to give a high level, powerful enchantment that hasn’t been seen in the Ten Realms for centuries. Even Apprentice-level enchantments—if their effects are good, then sects and schools will go to war to acquire them.”

  Erik and Rugrat looked at each other.

  “Well, hopefully it’s
something good!” Rugrat laughed.

  “What about the others? Detect Undead is pretty much self-explanatory.”

  “Magic Aura basically allows you to place an aura on an item, making it appear to be enchanted. It’s used to fool people, though there are a few spells that can trump it. The Knock is a scroll to open up to two doors in an area of effect—has to be doors, not portcullis or magically locked doors.”

  “Looks like we’ll be putting that to use sooner rather than later,” Erik said. “Okay, let’s go to that second empty room and then we’ll head to that locked door and portcullis.”

  They went to the other room and found nothing. Then they retraced their steps and went toward the locked doors that had stopped Sally from advancing any farther.

  Erik moved up to the portcullis. On the other side, there was a dimly lit room. The walls were covered in mold and there were signs of corruption as a foul smell of swamp reached him.

  There was the sound of something shuffling about in the space, and Erik saw cracks in the ceiling where swamp water and roots from the trees above tried to enter the room.

  Pillars held up the ceiling but some of them had given away, leading to the instability in the ceiling.

  The creature that had been shambling around came into view. It looked like a scarecrow with long arms that hung down at its sides.

  Its body had been made from boulders and dirt, but now it was covered in plants that broke and cracked the boulders, digging into the dirt.

  Worms filled the cavities where its eyes had been and moved through its body. Its body was nothing more than a host for the Wood-attribute creatures.

  Erik waved the others up and pointed at the creature.

  “Momma Rodriguez used to say, do what they tell you, unless it sounds dumb. Then get the hell out of there. If you don’t, then I’ll beat the hell out of you and your commanding officer,” Rugrat said.

  “She did make amazing candied yams,” Erik reminisced.

  “I ain’t fucking going in there, man,” Rugrat said.

  “Candied yams?” Matt asked.

  “Like sweet potatoes with sugar goodness and marshmallows on top.” Erik could just taste them.