“Damn, heart attack waiting to happen.” Matt shook his head.
“But it tasted soo good!” Erik shot back.
“Erik, c’mon, man!” Rugrat said.
“Who said anything about going in there?” Erik said as the creepy scarecrow creature looked around the area. Made of mold and fungus, it shuffled forward slightly.
“Portcullis, perfect for resting your rifle on.” Erik smiled. “I don’t want to get my ass beat.”
“We are in the Ten Realms,” Matt said.
Erik looked right into Matt’s eyes. “Momma Rodriguez has ways, my man. Ain’t no Ten Realms going to stop her from crossing the divide to beat my ass because I got Rugrat hurt. Lady is like a damn tiger, bear, wildebeest Southern saint!”
“Damn right,” Rugrat said, both of them completely serious.
“Noted,” Matt said, not sure how to react.
Rugrat and Erik looked at each other before looking at the shuffling Earthen scarecrow mixed with the corruption of the swamp above.
“Damn, Momma Rodriguez could cook,” Erik said.
“Qualified for sainthood,” Rugrat agreed as he put his rifle’s barrel through the portcullis, aiming at the creature.
Erik slid his own hand through the bars as Matt moved to his other side, raising up a crossbow.
“Rugrat, if you’d do the honors,” Erik said.
Rugrat took his time, lining up the shot.
He fired. The pressure wave of the weapon hit everyone in the chest as the creature let out a wail and stumbled to the side, a chunk of plants and boulder missing.
Erik and Matt followed up. Matt’s bolt didn’t gain purchase while Erik’s Mana bullet left a black mark on the creature’s body.
All of them continued firing, filling the room with light and noise. The creature tried to run forward, but it lost sections and parts of itself. It tried to throw its fist forward in an attack. Its boulder-like hand flew forward and hit the portcullis, shattering as it had been weakened with the Wood creatures.
It lost its legs and head, crawling forward before it crumbled apart. The Wood-attribute plants and creatures started to wither as they lost their food source.
There was a massive noise from behind them. They all turned to the locked door that Sally hadn’t been able to get through.
“Move around it to the other side so we have a way out!” Erik said.
They skirted round the door as something on the other side was trying to get out.
The door broke down. A large, green-skinned creature with a single eye stepped forward toward them.
The ground broke underneath it, revealing a large pit.
The creature yelled out as it hit different rocks before settling at the bottom.
“Earth-attribute ogre,” Matt said.
“Sounds like a real charmer,” Rugrat said.
“They’ve got tough skin, can take hard hits, good at regeneration. Best to deal with them at range and bind them into place,” Matt quickly spoke.
The ogre had fallen all the way into the pit and was roaring up at them.
“I think we might have solved that problem,” Erik said after a few moments as the ogre didn’t appear again. He moved toward the pit beneath the door and looked down at the ogre there.
“Good thing we didn’t use the door.” Rugrat scanned through the doorway. There was nothing inside as green lights illuminated the space.
The ogre was roaring but it couldn’t get out of the pit.
Erik cast Hallowed Ground in the pit. The ogre continued to roar out as the red mist appeared and flames started to appear on its body.
Instead of increasing the range of the Hallowed Ground, he increased the effects. The damage piled up as the ogre thrashed around and tried to attack them.
It threw some rocks but they were back from the edge.
After some time, its cries ended and the Experience flowed in as a tombstone appeared.
Rugrat pulled out a wooden plank and put it across the pit.
Erik went first, touching the tombstone.
==========
Ogre bones x7
Ogre teeth x4
Tattered ogre leather x3
Mortal-Grade Earth-attribute Monster Core x2
Lesser Mortal-grade monster core
==========
TAKE/TAKE ALL
==========
Erik selected everything but the leather, and the ogre’s body started to dissipate.
He made it to the other side, checking the room. There were two doors on the right side, a few feet apart.
Erik checked them. One needed to be slid up and the other looked as though it could be pushed in.
He gestured to the door that could be pushed in.
The others went over to the door. They all inspected it but they couldn’t find anything wrong with it.
Erik kicked the door. The ceiling started to come apart, with boulders falling down.
Erik turned and jumped, grabbing the other two as boulders rained down on them.
They hit the ground as boulders kept falling.
“Talk to me!” Erik got up. He was battered but not in bad shape. He turned to face the doorway that they had been about to go through.
Rugrat groaned but got up. “I’ve got the door. Check on Matt.” Rugrat pulled out his shotgun and moved toward the door.
He went through the doorway as Erik watched, ready to assist if he needed.
“Clear!” Rugrat yelled out.
Erik turned to find Matt had been knocked out cold.
Erik cast Minor Heal Wounds as he checked him over. Blood came from the side of his neck, where a sharp boulder had caught him.
“Fuck. Spine’s smashed, head’s not good.” Erik poured Focused Heal into Matt’s head. He had a nasty brain bruise and what looked like the start of a brain bleed.
Rugrat walked over from the doorway he’d gone through, stepping over the boulders and holding his shoulder. “I’m good, look after him.” Rugrat groaned as he held his shoulder but otherwise was okay.
Erik pulled out healing powder and poured it on Matt’s cuts. As his healing fought to keep down the swelling, he felt the Mana draining out of him. Erik had to use Mana Regeneration potions as he worked to make sure he wouldn’t run out.
“Come on, you motherfucker!” Erik yelled. The brain injury was taking much longer to heal. Because of that, a brain bleed had started and the pressure on the brain was mounting.
“Rugrat, I’m going to need you to relieve pressure on Matt’s brain.”
“What?” Rugrat looked at Erik and then Matt.
“Just get ready!” Erik yelled.
“Fucking shit.” Rugrat continued to heal himself as he created a Mana blade in his hand, changing it to look like a scalpel and then started clearing an area on the ground.
Erik really didn’t want to do surgery on Matt’s brain. There was no knowing if they did that he would be the same person, even if they healed everything back to the way it was. It wasn’t an experiment Erik wanted to carry out.
Rugrat bent down to help, using his Focused Heal as well.
The two spells halted the progression of the swelling and the bleeding, containing it and stopping it. Then the damage started to reverse. It was a slow process, with Erik and Rugrat having to down Mana Regeneration powders to deal with the strain.
Finally, Matt started to groan as he came back around.
Minutes went by before Erik and Rugrat finished.
Matt was blinking rapidly, as if he couldn’t take in the light of the room.
“Guys, I can’t move my arms,” Matt said, starting to panic.
Erik knew about the break in his spine but it hadn’t been life threatening so he hadn’t focused on it.
He used Heal Bone to recover the vertebrae and then Focused Heal on the nerves.
Matt’s hand shot up as he could move it again suddenly. “Holy crap,” Matt said, his breathing rushed.
“Only a little broken
spine, not much when you’ve got healing spells,” Erik said. I wish I could’ve been able to use this on my friends back home who landed badly parachuting or were hit by an IED.
“Be in working condition in no time,” Rugrat assured him and looked up to Erik. “I’m using a pole to open every other door from now on.”
“Agreed. Or a placed charge.” Erik used a healing spell on himself as he looked at the swamp mud-covered, dented, and scratched armor.
“We’ll head into that room behind the portcullis in fifteen,” Erik announced.
Rugrat checked his gear. Matt was shaky but he started reloading his crossbows, focusing on that instead of his near-death experience.
Erik, Rugrat, and Matt went over the pit and to the portcullis room that they had killed the shambling boulder creature in.
Erik and Rugrat forced the gate open. Matt rushed through, the other two following as the portcullis dropped with a bang.
The room was empty except for the body of the creature and its tombstone.
Matt looted it and checked its contents. “Earth, Wood Variant cores, one apiece, and a lesser Mortal core. Also has glittering dust, can be used as an enhancer. It’s a good catalyst for Mana.”
“Door,” Rugrat said. There was a rock door set into the wall. One had to be standing at just the right angle to see it.
Erik moved closer and looked it over for traps. “I don’t see anything.”
“Me either,” Rugrat said.
“Something looks odd about it,” Matt said hesitantly.
“Let’s try to open it with a piece of wood,” Rugrat said.
Erik used a length of wood, pushing on the door. It was, thankfully, unlocked.
“Stop!” Matt called out.
“What?” Rugrat asked.
“Arrow holes—it’s got an arrow trap,” Matt said.
Erik looked closer at what Matt pointed at. “So it does.” Erik put the length of wood away.
“Hammer time.” Rugrat pulled out a hammer and gave it to Erik.
Matt and Rugrat moved to the left side of the door, Erik on the right.
Rugrat nodded to Erik and he heaved the hammer. It smashed into the door, pushing it back. Erik took two more swings before the door opened all the way.
One could only hear the sound of rushing air as hundreds of arrows shot through the doorway, burying themselves in the room’s pillars.
“Shit.” Erik looked through the door after the arrows stopped. There was an arrow wall and a corridor beside it. Erik went first and moved past the arrow wall into the corridor.
“Good call, Matt.” Rugrat followed Erik in.
They went through the corridor and found a room cut off with another portcullis.
Erik opened it and the others went in.
There was a small room attached through an archway and a door leading out of the room.
Finding nothing, they looked at the door in front of them.
Erik once again stood to the side and smashed it open. They all entered the room. It looked to be a hall of some kind with trees holding up the high ceiling. They entered at the top of it, looking across at another door and down at two more doors entering the hall.
A scream came from above as a creature dropped from the ceiling through a hole and landed on the ground.
It was made of green vines and black mud. It looked vaguely humanoid without a head and had stick-like hands and feet made from black wood that had been sharpened into vicious claws.
It didn’t even move before it was getting hit with crossbow bolts, heavy rounds, and Mana bolts.
“Fuck you!” Rugrat yelled as they fired on the creature.
A black aura appeared around it.
Black vapor seemed to grow from the floor, covering the trees, and leaving an oil like substance.
A tree branch suddenly freed itself from the wall, whipping out and slammed into Rugrat, sending him flying before he had time to react.
He got his feet under him and came up shooting.
The creature that hadn’t been able to get up off the ground collapsed, the circle around it fading away. It was like a void as Earth-attribute Mana surged to replace the Wood Mana, leaving the creature and its tombstone behind.
Matt went and grabbed it.
“Swamp ghoul, Wood variant core, two greater Mortal-grade monster cores. Shrieking wood, four of them, and Refined Dervin Swamp mud?”
“Sounds alchemical.” Erik shrugged.
“Hardened wood buckler, Journeyman. Worn breastplate, damaged, but again Journeyman workmanship. Elvish work dagger, medium Journeyman work—that’s a collector’s item. Worth a good amount of gold.”
“Well, hopefully be enough for the liters of beer I need after being in this place,” Rugrat said.
Matt took it into his storage ring, the creature dissipating.
“Use your Dungeon Sense. Let’s see if we can find out where this dungeon core is,” Erik said.
Rugrat used his Dungeon Sense as the marker on their map reduced in size. It was east and a bit north of where they were and the doors in the hall only went north or south.
“Is that some kind of compass thing?” Matt asked.
“Something like that Rugrat said.
“Let’s take that door then.” Erik gestured to the door straight ahead of them and closest to where the dungeon core was supposed to be.
They repeated their actions from before, smashing the door down with a sledgehammer.
Erik looked to the other side. There was a dark area right on the other side of the door. Erik stepped forward and tumbled down a shaft.
He covered his head as he slammed against rocks and then came sliding out of a chute, hitting a statue.
He recovered as he heard wind. He jumped to the side. A glob of dirt hardened into stone in an instant as he heard another rush of air. He threw out light stones to illuminate the dark room, showing a room of different broken statues and two toad-looking creatures spitting out dirt from their mouths.
One’s tongue shot out and smashed into the statue near Erik, covering him in dust.
Erik fired Mana bolts at them and dove for cover.
The creature let out a pained yell. The other used its tongue, hitting Erik’s leg.
Erik gritted his teeth as the toad pulled his leg toward him. Erik rolled to the side, missing the other toad’s tongue as it slammed down where he had been.
Erik tried to fire on the toad dragging him but was thrown up into the air and slammed back down on the ground. The air went out of his lungs as the light zoomed in and out with his heart beats filling his ears.
He tossed a grenade between the toads.
One jumped away while the one holding Erik looked at it.
It went off, tearing it apart.
Bits of toad and ground filled the room, the dust making it hard to see.
The other toad started to vibrate, shaking the very floor, making it hard to stand.
A statue fell toward Erik. He grabbed it and jumped, unaffected by the shaking ground. The toad looked up at him in confusion as Erik brought the statue over his head as if he were doing the high striker at a carnival. The statue caved in the toad’s head and the room stopped shaking as two tombstones floated in the room.
Erik stumbled backward, covered in the mud-like substance the frogs were made of, flicking some of it off his helmet.
His sound transmission device was going crazy. Erik answered it, not listening to the chaotic incoming messages. “I’m good. Found some room. I have no idea what this place is,” Erik said.
“This is the Temple of Earth’s Divinity. I do not wish you harm, traveler,” a talking statue said. “Information updated. Identity: Dungeon Master. This is a naturally occurring dungeon looking to alter the surrounding area into an Earth-attribute area.”
“Why is it changing it to an Earth-attribute area?”
“The dungeon core rested at a position underneath the silver-peak tree. The dungeon core is purifying the Mana in th
is area but the tree is absorbing this Mana, exuding a heavy Earth-attribute Mana, creating more sections of this dungeon and new creatures to populate the area.”
“And the local residents are fighting back against the creatures coming from the dungeon?”
“Correct.”
“Where is the dungeon core?”
“It is located in the central room. If you make a right out of this room and then come to the entrance of the temple, you take a left, go through two rooms, and then it will be on your right side.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“It is my purpose,” the statue replied.
Erik pulled up his sound transmission device and talked to Rugrat and Matt, telling them what the statue told him.
He moved to the toads and checked the tombstones.
==========
Gold pieces x2
Amethyst
Mortal-Grade Earth-attribute Monster Core x2
Hardening dirt x15
==========
TAKE/TAKE ALL
==========
==========
Emerald
Ruby
Mortal-Grade Earth-attribute Monster Core x2
Hardening dirt x15
==========
TAKE/TAKE ALL
==========
Erik took all of the items as Matt and Rugrat entered the room.
They looked a bit rough for wear. Rugrat checked Erik over before moving to the door.
“I think I know where to go. Are there any traps on the path you detailed?” Erik asked the statue.
“There is a spike pit before the first door. The second door is also trapped. The door inside the dungeon core room is also trapped.”
“What kind of traps for the second door?”
“It is a pit trap.”
“Any beasts along the way?”
“There are greenflies moving in the first corridor.”
“Attributes?”
“Low health but highly potent poison and move in large numbers.” The statue talked, showing neither happiness nor sadness.
“What are you?” Matt asked.
“I am a talking statue. I will answer any and all questions asked me about this dungeon,” it said.
“Any more?” Erik asked.
“There is a purifier monster in the second room and gargoyles protecting the dungeon core and silver-peak tree.”
The Third Realm Page 11