by Dakota Krout
~Dale~
Dale's group was just walking into the dungeon, the first thing they did each day was clear the first room completely, to make sure there was no issue for the miners who came in to collect iron each day. Dale was still in constant wonder that no matter how much iron they tore out each day, the walls were unblemished in the morning, promising a good, easy mining operation.
“How was the city?” Steve casually questioned, kicking a shroomish as it tried to chomp his foot. It disintegrated in a puff of spores from the casual blow.
“It was amazing! Did you know they have Mages building a sewer system there? I wonder if we could do something like that here.” Dale wonderingly put forward. The others stopped and looked at him strangely, he wasn’t sure why Hans was laughing at him so hard he couldn’t breathe. “Are they not building it? Hans, what the hell?”
“All the wonders of the Capitol, and you are most excited about the… Sewers. Nothing else caught your attention?” Steve interrogated him levelly. “You need to go places without Hans. His politics will ruin your day.”
“We had fun! We did other things too! He brought me to a pleasure house.” Dale chattered indignantly.
“He did what?!” Craig gasped, turning and glaring at the man.
“Not like that-” Hans tried to explain, glares directed at him.
Dale continued talking over them, “I met a Madame, she gave us a discount because we went to her together, and she thinks her granddaughter would like to come train here.”
“Hans, you disgusting pervert.” Josh coldly stated, “How could you do that to the lad? You went together? At the same time? With a grandmother?”
“Well, how else do you do it? Who wants to do that alone?” Dale sounded a bit exasperated at the questions.
Hans was literally on the floor crying with laughter as he tried to hold up his hands in surrender. “N-n-n-no, guys! Guys! Hahaha! W-we went to the Pleasure House! The one Madame owns! He, he doesn’t know what this sounds like! The restaurant!” He could say nothing else as he gasped for air around his laughter.
The others started chuckling, then laughing almost as hard as Hans. The look of confusion on Dale’s face made them laugh even harder.
“What? What’s going on?!” Dale demanded, “I’ve never been off these mountains, come on! What's the joke?!”
They regained their feet and started walking, ignoring his angry questions and laughing as they went further in; some patting their naive companion on the back and shoulders as they walked. Working quickly, they cleared several rooms, constantly making their way toward the Boss room. A splashing sound garnered their interest, but before they were able to discern the location of the bubbling liquid, the new Boss squad was attacking them.
~Twenty-Two~
I informed Dani.
“Oh yeah? Added some traps or something?” Dani managed to tear her gaze away from the impending battle.
One of the two small rock-covered Smashers went directly for Josh, who braced himself with a grin and held out his shiny new tower shield. At the last moment he thrust it forward! *Clang* *sn-nap* The Smashers neck broke with an organic tearing sound, his spine protruding from just below the base of his skull.
“Yes! It’s so much better than my last one!” Josh roared in celebration.
She answered pensively, “It returns part of the momentum of the attack back on the attacker, doesn’t it? That heavy charge had a lot of power in it I think.”
The infernally enhanced Impaler chose that moment to erupt from a tunnel opening behind Steve just then, landing a successful sneak attack. His sharpened horn burst through the thick leather armor just below Steve’s kidney, the angle of the horn opening his spleen as it punched through his front. A pained gasp is all the sound the man could muster as he fell to his knees.
The Impaler lived up to his name well, setting its paws on Steve's back it pushed backward, adding more damage to the ravaged body it was standing on. Not yet out of the fight, Steve whipped around and crushed the skull of the offending Impaler with his bare hands. He then pulled the last bit of horn from his body with a soft grunt before casually sitting down. Dale shot forward and caught an Oppressor with a swing, snapping its spine. Craig moved in a blur of motion, killing the two remaining Mobs as Hans ran to help Steve.
“You’re gonna be alright, don’t you worry ‘bout a thing.” Hans held his hands against the gushing wound. “We’re ten minutes from the most powerful healer you’ll ever need.” He scooped Steve up easily, keeping pressure on the wound with his arm as he lifted from the ground.
“Well I didn’t open all those meridians so I could dance.” Steve sputtered blood mid-sentence. “I’ll be fine! I’ve had worse when I was caught with that noble girl, remember?” He gurgled a bloody chuckle.
“Well that's for the best, because I have to tell ya, you got two left feet.” Hans quipped, starting for the exit. “Plus you are too good for a backwater noble family anyway.”
Dale caught their attention, “Wait! Look! This is pouring out a health potion!”
I focused on Dani for a second,
“No,” she crushed my hopes, “We wanted to get people used to the idea of a healing fountain in here.”
Dale pulled out a flask and dunked it into the churning cistern, which had a fountain flowing into it. I had decided on that design, I wanted both function and form. I’m a sucker for pampering myself. Dale moved over to his friend who was bleeding out, helping him drink as much as he could.
Craig then instructed Dale to pour the potion directly onto the wound, then they watched anxiously as it swiftly closed. The hanging scraps of meat pulled together into working tissue, the blood vessels flowed back together, and the ruined nerves returned to a working system.
The potion was high quality, as was everything I gave out. The potion did more than the eye could see, stimulating bone marrow to produce blood cells and fluids, mimicking proteins for growth, but still a scar would remain. The healing process took a lot of energy, usually provided by the person doing the healing. Since a potion didn’t bring in much extra energy, I was certain Steve would be very hungry soon, he would have to eat to replenish his system. Hopefully he would starve soon enough that he would become distracted - and I could eat him.
Crisis averted, they sat to cultivate as Dani informed me that the first of the gems had been found, so I took a look. Yup, people were going nuts over the small chunks of emeralds they found. I would keep it interesting, there was also Ruby, Lapis, and - really rarely - Diamonds! Each of these were in a little hollow between layers of iron and stone that people would naturally come upon while mining, if they worked hard enough. In these hollows, there was also....
“Augh! It’s a- *Gack*” The mining man’s voice cut off as an uncovered Bane fired a poisonous thorn into his shouting mouth, the lucky shot going through the roof of his mouth into his brain.
“What
? No!” Dani was shocked, making me feel instant gratitude that she understood my concern. “Souls are terrifyingly powerful, especially when freshly dead. When a being dies they release a burst of energy, which separates their bodies and souls. That is the rush of Essence you get access to.”
“Honestly, I have no idea. It must have been a specially prepared stone made by someone so powerful I cannot even comprehend it. It would need to be an S-ranked Necromancer, at least. I have never heard of a Necromancer becoming that powerful though.” Dani mused. “They are always killed. Well…”
“Well, Necromantic cultivation isn’t actually… illegal. It just has a really bad reputation. The main way they get more powerful is by absorbing the burst of Necromantic energy that results from something dying, similar to what you do...” She trailed off.
“Ahem, well, Necromancers get killed because they obtain more energy when strong emotions are passing through the person at the time of death. So, most quickly delve into torture and murder and other illegal things.” She whispered. “If they didn’t get caught doing that though, they wouldn’t even be in trouble… Though demon summoning, a branch of Necromancy, is illegal everywhere.” She finished in a rush, as if that tidbit would appease me.
I sighed, a neat trick without lungs.
“That's the spirit!” She enthused, “Ah… hah.”
“The most common thing is to raise the dead. That isn’t, well, the act itself isn’t illegal, but some places will really dislike it, for obvious reasons.”
“Pretty much. People really don’t like desecration of their loved ones. Now, while the reanimated creature has to do what the summoner wants, the summoned creature is always, always insane.” She shuddered and cuddled up to me.
“The only souls that are able to be summoned are those that have run from the Creators judgement. They fear the void, the nothingness that awaits them, or the abyss, which is terrible for other reasons. They wander the earth and can never stop moving. They can never sleep, never taste, never feel. By the time they feel a summoning, they are jealous of the living and will do anything to kill them, to absorb the energy of their death.” She sounded close to weeping.
“No, the average undead isn’t that smart. They will take the most direct route for anything, they have no forethought anymore. They aren’t used to having a corporeal form. The really dangerous ones are actually the demons.” She fearfully let me know, “They are confused for undead because they need to inhabit a corpse in order to have a corporeal form, but they are actually incredibly intelligent and horrifically cunning. There is a rumor that they hate the one who summons them, and if given a chance would kill their master. Wrong. They cheerfully obey their summoner, doing everything they can to keep them alive and happy. You see if their master dies, the demons are yanked back into the abyss.”
“If a Necromancer were a good person, they would be nearly the best at almost any profession. Working with dead things is the domain of those with the infernal affinity. Since humans and other sentient things are made of all the different essences, as they get stronger they discover that they can use their lesser affinities to augment themselves.” She told me in a puzzling manner. Seeing my confusion, she continued.
“Take Dale, for instance,” She made me look at the cultivating group, “He has a major earth affinity. In the C-rankings, he may find that he has a minor affinity with Fire Essence as well, making him a magma cultivator. Fire and water? Steam cultivator. Each distinct affinity he is able to use and cultivate from will give him better options, and make him more likely to ascend into the B-rankings.”
“The best affinity they have will allow them to get the purest Essence as fast as possible. The older ones who know the truth - that they could pull from all sources if they found a way to unblock themselves - hide this fact because it can lead to really corrupted Essence in a hurry.” She informed me with a small smile.
“Oh, well, think of it like this: A blacksmith who imbues Essence into his work to make it better is a Magma Cultivator, usually the case anyway. If he had infernal and earth as his affinities, he or she would not even need a flame to shape the dead earth into the form they wanted. Also, they would instinctively know the best way to make a weapon to produce the deadliest version that it could become.” I got a chill as I thought of the implications and possible uses.
“Not always, it will rely on personal skill, but typically Necromantic cultivators can reverse the knowledge of how to destroy things into a foundation to making things better. If they are smart, they could be some of the best in the world, but killing is so much easier than the slow route they would need to take. They can’t cultivate like other humans, with meditation and pulling from elements, neither can celestial Mages, so their growth is very slow usually.” She ended her tale as Dale's group began to move again.
This was my chance to get them, so I decided to take time to ponder Dani’s words as the day continued. Dale now led the way, calling out stress points and possible traps with far more accuracy than he had started with a few weeks ago. With a start, I realized that those stress points were like irritants to me. When the group was further along the tunnel I would smooth those points, which felt really good, like a muscle relaxant must to a human. I should listen to their conversations more often, I chided myself.
I tried so hard to trick them into dying, but they avoided all of my ambushes so skillfully I felt they were playing with me. I had a bit of luck when they were crossing the bridge, some acid getting onto the cloth surrounding Craig’s hand, He lost a little skin, but had the cloth off himself very quickly. It splashed into the acid pool with a hiss, and the information it contained came to me. I realized that it was very interesting stuff, but I would need to work through it slowly. I had never seen such a small item so intricately Inscribed with Runes.
They kept coming, falling for the light fountain room, going well out of their way. They walked in and looked confused until Steve recognized what the shimmering liquid was, convincing everyone to use any open flask to contain some of the potion. Having filled most of their flasks earlier with the healing potion, only a few were available for this shining fluid. Somehow, the light in the room must have distracted them from the Runescript on the ground around the shining cistern. To their dismay, as they walked away all of their shoes, boots, and foot wraps degenerated into piles of scraps. Heh. Barefoot adventurers.
They corrected their mistaken route, making it into the Boss room. I was looking for the best route of attack when I heard the big one, Josh, mention something rather concerning.
“Did you hear about the new quest? Apparently there is a Mob in here we haven't seen before, a gold colored one that healed the Boss yesterday. Huge reward for the first one caught, double if it is alive. Also something about a Wisp, but I haven’t seen anything like that here.�
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“Oh? Well, let’s find it, daddy needs a new pair of shoes.” Hans earned himself some booing from the group of barefoot individuals.
They were in for a surprise today! The crowd above was cheering again, placing bets and preparing for the battle. Well, let’s see if I can’t make them lose some money. I had made a tunnel around the room that opened up several feet above head level, and only the thundering of stone and the cries of surprise from above made the small group look up as Raile dropped toward them from on high.
They scattered in time, blast it, but were now isolated and off balance. Raile nudged Hans as he charged Josh, sending the first spinning and catching a barely prepared Josh’s shield. The Rune worked overtime, small chunks of Raile’s armor crumbled into powder and cracked. My curiosity was satisfied as Josh still went flying. During the distraction provided by the flying man, Raile charged the weak link, Dale.
“Come on you overgrown rabbit! I’ve been practicing!” Dale turned and ran.
Dani softly chuckled into my head, “Maybe he’s been practicing his cardio?”
“His running ability.” She uttered something condescending under her breath about my lack of vocabulary.
“I think you are starting to like him. You’ve always liked a challenge.” Dani laughed at my long-suffering moan.