Wicked Dungeon
Page 5
He gave them orders to go and wake people and bring them on deck. Fuck looking on any more islands, he wanted to sail straight for the exit; straight for where he would probably find the dungeon core he was going to smash to pieces.
The problem was that he didn't know where the exit was. He'd much rather sail around and make sure it wasn't just at the end of the ocean like it had previously been at the end of the desert before he subjected his crew to another trawl over the islands.
His party gathered above deck. He met eyes with Amber for a moment, and something passed between them, though he wasn't sure what.
The fact they'd resisted each other despite having every reason to give in and fuck should have been a dampener on their chemistry, but instead he felt himself stir in his pants.
He still wanted her. Of course he still wanted her, she was gorgeous.
And he hadn't watched her being fucked by another guy right in front of him. That always helped.
He stood at the wheel of the ship and everyone watched him, most with tired, demotivated eyes. He wondered if anyone had managed to sleep.
"I know this has been hard so far." He wasn't used to motivating speeches, he was used to barking orders and them being followed immediately. The emotional toll that they faced in the precinct was never finding out who had committed a crime and being forced to look a victim in the eye and tell them they were unlikely to get closure, or being certain that someone had committed a crime and then them being acquitted on trial, or making a plea that gave them such a puny sentence it wasn't even worth them serving it. He'd never lost anyone in the line of duty before, and that realization threatened to knock him completely off his game.
"But this isn't over yet," he continued, holding the wheel to steady himself. "We've found our suspect, and now we're going to bring him to justice. I won't let him be acquitted by us running away. This man has killed our own, and I won't give up until I'm holding his head in my hand. Are you with me?"
He held up his staff, and it didn't feel as ridiculous as it should have.
The remainder of his crew held up their weapons, too, and there was a shout from them.
It wasn't strong enough. They weren't feeling it despite his speech. He'd roused them, but not enough that if they had the option, they wouldn't have teleported out of the dungeon at that moment.
"Lucy, Isaiah, Dwayne, Jill, George. We're going to remember all of those names for the rest of our lives. And so are their families. I refuse to go back and tell their loved ones that we gave up. I won't look them in the eye and say that we walked out of here without giving it our all, without doing everything we could to get justice for their deaths. Are you with me?"
The cheer this time was much louder, and people began banging their staffs on the floor, knocking their swords against their shields.
Then the boat rocked, knocking the rhythm out of sync and making Aiden glad he'd been holding onto the helm. He rushed to the side of the ship, only to see another huge wave coming rushing toward them. It was big enough that it would come straight over the side of the ship and flood the deck.
"Hold onto something!" he shouted over the sudden thunder that rolled in the sky. Black clouds gathered abnormally quickly, and he knew it was Aaron's doing.
Was he really trying to shipwreck them? It seemed counterintuitive. Aaron didn't seem like the kind of person who wanted to just kill. He wanted people to suffer, and for that they needed to be alive.
Unless Elizabeth was watching.
If Elizabeth watched him die she would suffer.
Maybe Aiden was putting too much importance on his own emotions. She was the one Aaron had taken captive.
The wave hit them, flooding the deck like he'd expected and soaking everyone. No one lost their grip, though, and they all remained on the ship for now. "I need to turn this around so we're sailing away from the waves," he shouted, hoping that the knowledge the computer had imparted in them would be enough to keep them from wrecking the boat.
People moved immediately, though, and someone kept lookout for when the next wave would hit so they could alert everyone of the danger and make sure they got somewhere safe.
They needed rope to tie themselves down, but there was none on deck. Aiden managed to get the ship turned around so the wave would propel them forward before crashing on them. Maybe they could outrun the storm.
But Aaron was the one controlling it. He could make it chase them forever.
Aiden pressed a hand to his head, but he didn't have a solution.
He was at Aaron's complete mercy.
"I see more ships!"
Aiden's head snapped up. He could see them, too. Two ships in the distance, heading straight toward them.
"It's Aaron!" he shouted back without hesitation, and thunder clapped the moment he stopped speaking. "This is our final fight. Get ready!"
Aaron had two ships to their one, but Aiden still had seven people fit and ready to fight. They still had a chance against Aaron's witless ogres if they could work as a team.
The ships got closer and closer and Aiden resisted the urge to bark commands about formation. Aaron would be watching and listening, and Aiden wasn't going to give him any more advantages than he had to.
The storm calmed when they were just minutes from meeting each other, but Aiden had no intention of turning the ship around and fleeing even if he had time to. This was it. He was either going to kill Aaron and continue on to shatter his dungeon core, or he was going to die.
He was ready for whichever one it was.
"Arm yourselves," he said to his crew, which included the subtle instruction that they should get into formation and be ready to be boarded. He didn't know what Aaron's strategy was going to be here.
Aaron himself probably wasn't even on the ship. He was ready to rip the guy's hair out, but from his time in the dungeon and the information he'd gotten from Mark, Aaron didn't seem sold on actually fighting himself.
It was probably a horde of orcs, and Aaron was sitting in a back room somewhere watching it all play out with a smug smile on his face.
"We're going in between them," he said, having no intention of throwing down his anchor and stopping. If they wanted to let him go straight through, he would still take it. "Get ready on both flanks."
Aiden sat at the helm with his staff, ready to fight both sides from his advantageous spot above the fight.
Then he saw what was on the left ship.
Two cages, hoisted above a group of orcs who held their weapons up ready to charge.
One had Elizabeth in it.
She was naked but not trying to cover herself. He couldn't see any physical injuries, but her face was listless.
He fought every muscle to avoid running through everything to reach her. He would never make it and Elizabeth would only see him die, but he still wanted to. He still wanted to reach her no matter the cost.
The people guarding the left flank saw her, too, and Aiden looked away. It was his embarrassment that he'd let this happen to his girlfriend. His shame that he hadn't told anyone the full truth of what had happened to her.
What he noticed when he looked back was that they gripped their weapons tighter, that their faces were drawn back into practically snarls.
He'd thought it would scare them, especially the women, but instead they looked more motivated than before.
It was outrage. Disgust.
Finally they were filled with the same fire that had consumed Aiden since Elizabeth had been stolen from him. They would give it their all.
And that was all he could ask.
He forced himself to stay at the helm because he knew it was a strong position, but he wanted to join the left flank where he could blast his way through the orcs to get to Elizabeth. He could see Delilah up there as well, but Mark hadn't. He was on the right flank, and hadn't looked back. Aiden wasn't going to think about what would happen to their formation when Mark finally saw his friend suspended and naked on the other ship.
There were still a dozen left to fight, though, and he started casting his next projectile immediately. Then he canceled it, because that had been his downfall at the previous fight. He'd forgotten to DoT everyone first. He focused everyone in the party and applied his DoT, watching the damage tick in small increments.
Before he began casting his projectile again, the doors leading to the ship's cabin swung open, and he saw the face that had been haunting his nights for weeks.
It was Aaron.
He was on the ship.
Aiden clenched his fist, but Aaron was just out of range of his DoT. The ships moved closer and closer together until Aaron was close enough, and he put the DoT on him.
Then he began casting his projectile. He was going to kill Aaron if it was the last thing he did.
Aaron met his gaze head-on.
And then he grinned.
Aiden fired the projectile and it hit Aaron square in the chest, but it didn't knock the smirk off his face. Aiden's instant cast hadn't procced, and he was forced to start casting the projectile again.
But then Aaron's health shot back up.
He'd finally gotten some healers among his orcs. Aiden knew he should have switched his focus, but the spell had nearly completed and he couldn't resist firing it at Aaron again, seeing the half a second where he flinched from the pain of being hit by something so powerful.
His health was immediately recouped, and Aiden was forced to change his focus to the healer. He was one of the only ones who would be able to get easy shots at the healer, and he had to take advantage of that. Only he couldn't find an orc that was obviously a healer among the party.
The ships drew level, and the orcs did something to anchor the ships to each other, though Aiden couldn't see what. Either way, it made the ship jerk, and people lost their balance for a second.
The orcs didn't hesitate, but charged straight at the parties on each flank. The fighting began and Aiden continued to watch to see where the healing was from as he cast his projectile again and again at Aaron.
It was only after a few minutes that he thought to look up and watch Elizabeth muttering under her breath, keeping Aaron alive with her own healing.
"You bastard," Aiden hissed, wishing for the thousandth time that he'd picked a class that could charge into the battle and do some up close and personal damage. He wanted to drag his sword through Aaron's flesh, not watch as his projectile traveled through the air and knocked Aaron backward, only to be immediately healed.
This time Aiden got an instant cast and fired it his way, too. Elizabeth was still only Level Two, and her healing wasn't powerful enough to keep Aaron alive through a full barrage.
Aaron was dangerously low. Just two more ticks of the DoT would finish him off. Aiden began casting a much weaker projectile with a shorter cast time. That would finish him off, too.
Aaron wasn't only relying on Elizabeth, though. He had a whole troupe of orcs that he could direct at will, and all switched their focus to Aiden in an instant. He was swarmed by three melee orcs who charged at him, knocking him to the deck and stunning him, canceling his cast. Two arrows threaded the needle and hit him in the chest.
His own party hurried to help him and Amber slammed into one of the orcs, gaining aggro first from him and then from the other two. He was healed too and forced himself to his feet.
Aaron wasn't fighting, he was just standing there watching.
Taunting.
It wasn't just to aggravate Aiden, though he was sure that was a big part of it. It was a strategy, too. If Aiden was using all his firepower on Aaron, it was giving his orcs more time than they should have to weaken his officers.
Aiden readjusted his priorities. Aaron was the ultimate goal, but to win the war he had to win the battle and that meant getting rid of the orcs. His party would easily be able to do more damage than Elizabeth could heal, they just had to all get to him first.
Aiden replenished the DoTs on the orcs surrounding him, and jogged backward to get a better spot to take out the ranged orcs who still had their focus on him. His healers could easily keep him replenished as he fired a projectile that procced the instant cast. He could one-shot a ranged orc with that combo, it was overpowered. Elizabeth didn't heal anyone but Aaron, either. When Aiden hit his projectile, the health was never replenished.
He took out the three ranged orcs on the left flank in no time, and the melee classes around him were having just as easy a time with the orcs there.
Aiden turned his attention to the right flank, where the fighting was going just as well. There had been more orcs there, but not enough that they could overwhelm them. The healers were too powerful. He knew that when Aaron got access to orcs that could heal, he would become a lot more dangerous, but Aiden didn't intend to let him get to that point.
He put his DoT on the remaining orcs on the right flank and then cast more of his projectiles at the orcs surrounding him.
And then they were all dead.
And there was only Aaron left to take down.
Chapter Nine
Aaron realized early into the fight how fucked he was.
He didn't have healers, and they carried any side no matter how outnumbered they were. None of the orcs' damage stuck, and they took far too much. They started falling left, right and center when Aiden realized that firing attack after attack at Aaron wasn't the way to win a fight.
That didn't mean Aaron didn't have anything to leverage, though.
He still had two people that would be all the leverage he needed.
He lowered Elizabeth's cage to the ground while the last of the fighting took place, and opened the door. Elizabeth didn't fight. He'd charmed her, and the fight hadn't been so long that it had worn off yet. She was completely willing to listen to any of his commands.
"Come here," he said, beckoning her forward.
She listened, crawling out of the cage. The sight of it was enough to make him hard, but he could deal with that later. She stood up and Aaron grabbed her hand, pulling her against him. He pulled his weapons from their sheaths at his waist and crossed them over her neck.
One move and he would have decapitated her.
It was a bit of a gamble, but one he was confident in.
It was his only choice, anyway. He had to rely on it.
The fighting stopped, and Aiden's gaze snapped back to where Elizabeth's cage had been moments ago.
He found her, standing naked against Aaron, seconds later.
"Bastard," he hissed, pushing his way through his team of police officers to storm toward Aaron.
"I wouldn't come any further if I were you," Aaron said, and he was still smug even though his orcs had been humiliated by Aiden's party. He knew that was what would anger Aiden the most. "Not unless you want to see your girlfriend's head rolling across the deck anyway."
Aiden stopped in his tracks, but his fist was clenched at his side.
Aaron wondered for a moment if maybe he'd underestimated Aiden's anger. Maybe he wouldn't be able to stop himself from attacking, even if it would end up in Elizabeth's death.
"What do you want from me?" Aiden asked.
"I want you to keep sailing."
"I won't do that."
"Then I'll kill your girlfriend."
If he actually had to kill Elizabeth it would mean his death, of course. His avatar would be killed and he probably wouldn't respawn before Aiden had sailed on and killed his dungeon core.
If Aiden decided he hated Aaron more than he loved Elizabeth, then Aaron was fucked.
But Aiden was a police officer. He saved people, he didn't kill them. This was a gambit Aaron knew was going to work in his favor.
"You wouldn't dare."
> Aaron pressed the knife into Elizabeth's neck enough that it broke the skin. Blood trickled down her bare body, following the path between her breasts. Elizabeth whimpered, but didn't struggle.
"Try me," Aaron replied.
Amber tugged at Aiden's robes. "We should go," she said, the only one who had dared to approach Aiden. Even Mark was standing stock-still slightly behind him, just staring at Delilah's naked form still suspended in the cage.
Aaron didn't look at Delilah to see what she was doing. He wasn't going to risk diverting his attention from Elizabeth and Aiden.
"I can't just leave her like that," Aiden said, taking a singular step forward. "I refuse to just leave her here."
"She'd rather be here than dead," Amber continued to tug on his robes, trying to bring him back. He was still on his own ship, hadn't even made it onto Aaron's vessel despite winning the fight.
"Would you rather be here than dead, Elizabeth?" Aaron asked.
"I'd rather be here with you."
"Good girl." Aaron kissed the side of her head, grinning as Aiden seethed.
He just couldn't resist winding him up.
Amber tugged on his robes a final time. "We need to go," she said. "Right now." She leaned forward to whisper in his ear, and Aaron was sure it would be something along the lines of, "We can still kill his core."
And she wasn't wrong. Aaron hadn't figured out how he was going to stop the party from killing his dungeon core yet.
What he needed was to stay alive long enough to figure it out.
Aiden and Aaron stared at each other for a long moment, and then Aiden turned around. "We're leaving," he said to his crew, returning to the helm of the ship. "Get rid of whatever is binding us here. We sail on."
There were murmurs from the crew, but they must have figured out the same thing. They hadn't failed in their mission yet.
Aaron was still at the disadvantage in this situation.
Aaron watched, never dropping his knives from Elizabeth's neck, as Aiden and his crew sailed away.
When they were out of sight, he released Elizabeth. "They looked cozy, didn't they?"