Thief's Bounty: A LitRPG Dungeon Core Adventure (Dungeon of Evolution Book 1)

by DB King

  Marcus heard a loud shouting in the dwarven language and cut his way through his enemies toward it. The Sewer Slayer cavalry were big men, many with the distinctive facial tattooing that marked the men from the Sun Isles. They were dressed in good plate and had swords and war-axes, but Marcus could immediately tell that they had not trained as carefully with their new gear as the Gutter Gang had.

  They were clumsy with their swords, and Marcus was able to dance rings round them as he slipped toward the shouting. He crushed a ratman’s skull with his mace and cut a Slayer’s throat as he pushed through. In the middle of the fight, Kairn was holding off a champion of the Sewer Slayers mounted on a huge, snarling warg.

  Marcus dived in to help him, jumping up onto the back of a Slayer who was coming in to charge Kairn from behind. Marcus grabbed handfuls of the warg’s rankly matted fur and vaulted up, slitting the Slayer’s throat with a single sweep of his sword. As the man’s corpse dropped to the ground, Marcus raised his mace and brought it down in a crushing blow on the snarling warg’s head.

  Foot by foot, the Gutter Gang were being driven up the tunnel toward the main hall. There’d be much more room for the enemy there, Marcus knew. If they were pushed into the main hall, it would be disastrous. The Gang were so heavily outnumbered that they could easily be flanked. They’d be surrounded, and the enemies could organize a fatal charge. If they were driven into the main hall, it wouldn’t be long before this fight was over.

  Kairn jumped up and killed the enemy he was fighting with a great sweeping blow, then turned to look around, blood splattered on his face.

  “Kairn!” Marcus shouted as the battle raged around them. “We have to hold the entrance to the main chamber. We can’t be pressed back in there. If we are, we’ll be surrounded and cut off!”

  “Aye!” Kairn agreed. “Look to the rear, I’ll hold the front.”

  Marcus nodded and dashed off to cover the rear. The Gutter Gang let him through. At the back of the Gang’s formation, the wounded were lined up in a row against the wall, groaning painfully and some still clutching their weapons as if yearning to rejoin the battle. He hurried to them and began to heal using his elemental water power. Healing water gushed over them, washing away their injuries with their blood.

  As he healed them, he felt the dungeons call for his attention. Without stopping the healing water, he looked into his chambers and realized what was happening. The dungeons were becoming dangerously overloaded. Enemies, living and dead, were piled thickly in the corridor and the chamber, but they had stopped pouring in. Marcus realized what had happened—the main body of the enemy force was now past the broken barricade, so they had stopped going through the dungeon doors.

  He stood for a moment and tried to peer over the heads of the defenders, but he couldn’t see much except a press of dark figures outlined against the roaring flames of the burning barricade.

  The wounded were all back on their feet now, thanking him.

  “Don’t thank me,” he said, “just get your weapons and get back to the defense!”

  As he spoke, he heard a great shout of fear and dismay from the front. Marcus was frustrated. He couldn’t see. A heavy stench of blood, sweat, and smoke stained the battle. Glancing from side to side, he caught sight of a rocky ledge on one wall, took a running jump, and caught it, pulling himself up.

  For a moment he held himself there and assessed the situation. The battle spiders had come. Ten huge spiders, as big as horses, crept ponderously through the burning rubble and scattered bodies toward the defenders. With every step, the spiders’ armor clinked: red, rusty iron plate against the even rustier chainmail skirts draped over their horrible thin legs. They hissed and chattered as they came slowly on, and Marcus saw the front line of the Gutter Gang wavering as the nightmare creatures bore down on them.

  A voice was calling his name, “Marcus! Marcus!”

  He looked down. It was Hammer, the dog, standing below him, looking worried. Marcus dropped to the ground and greeted the dog happily.

  “Hey buddy,” Marcus said. “I wondered where you’d got to. Are you all good?”

  “No time for that,” Hammer said frantically. “Ella’s in the main chamber, she says you need to come quick!”

  Not waiting to hear more, Marcus turned and followed Hammer up into the main chamber. Behind him, he heard the clash of steel and Kairn roaring orders, but he also heard the fearful cries of the Gutter Gang. They were being pressed inexorably back toward the main chamber as wargs and ratmen and battle spiders bore down on them.

  They have to hold here, he thought. It’s the only way they can avoid being flanked, and if they are flanked, they’ll never hold out!

  “Ella! What is it?” Marcus shouted as he ran into the chamber.

  Ella was flying back and forth in agitation, near a portion of the upper wall that seemed to be cracked. Marcus could hear a steady rumbling noise.

  Marcus glanced up. “What in the…”

  And then it became clear. There was a crackling boom, and a flash of fire, and a whole section of the ceiling caved in.

  Ella screamed and flew out of the way of the falling masonry. Daylight flooded in through the hole in the roof. Stocky figures shouted and began to lower themselves down into the chamber on ropes.

  “We’re going to be surrounded!” Ella yelled. “Marcus, you have to save the Grove chamber!”

  “Warn the others!” he shouted to her, and she flew toward the entrance while Marcus sprinted up the back tunnel toward the Grove chamber’s placement. He cast the spell, secreting the sphere in his robe pouch. Marcus charged back to the main chamber as quickly as he could—he just hoped that that would be quick enough.

  Chapter 26

  A steady stream of figures lowered themselves into the hall on ropes. Marcus looked around in confusion. Dwarves! A team of armored dwarves in steel plate and chainmail, with huge helmets that covered their entire faces. They were armed to the teeth with axes, swords, and crossbows. As they landed, they looked around, searching eagerly for enemies.

  Next, a group of more lightly armed men appeared. The city guard! They lowered themselves down on ropes as well, laughing and gloating as they came. Their armor caught the splinters of daylight that now pierced into the Underway. Marcus looked for Ella, but she had disappeared.

  What should he do? He could attack the group by himself, or run and warn the others, but he could not do both. He had only a moment to decide.

  He had to warn the others. Even he could not take on a hundred heavy dwarven fighters and half a cohort of the city guard single-handedly. He turned and sprinted back to the Gang.

  His small force was at the entrance to the hall, and they were at risk of spilling back into the main hall any minute now. Their boots dragged along the ground as the enemy tried to push through the narrow entryway.

  “Form up and turn!” Marcus yelled to the back row. “Get the wounded into the middle!”

  The Gang didn’t ask any questions. The back rank turned and formed a back-facing shield wall, while others pulled the wounded into the middle of the block. The battle spiders were at the front, fighting with the spearmen. The Gang were putting up a fierce resistance, but they could not hold out for long.

  Marcus dashed to the middle and began frantically healing the wounded. It worked. The healed fighters staggered to their feet and took up arms again, but now Marcus realized something that he hadn’t noticed before. The healing process took something out of the wounded. Some of the people he was healing had been wounded and healed three times now, and they were pale and reeling as they stood. There had been another three deaths, too—catastrophic injuries that were beyond any magic’s healing ability.

  Kairn was fighting at the front of the shield wall, and Marcus took command at the back, facing the newly arrived force of dwarves and men. This new fighting force charged the Gutter Gang from behind, slamming into them with a great mocking battle-yell. The shield-wall held, and the Gang pushed back, fighting w
ith spear and sword. But it was only a matter of time.

  Suddenly, Marcus reeled. He felt as if his knees had been kicked out from under him. What happened?

  His attention was forcibly pulled to the Bladehand dungeon. Here, the bladehand faced a wall of dead ratmen, an appalling heap of monstrous carrion that packed the chamber tightly to the ceiling. The bladehand itself was changing, and a spell flashed through the dungeon chamber—and through Marcus’s mind.

  Dungeon Meld: Finalize.

  “What is it?” he said. His awareness snapped back to his body. He was on his knees, and someone was standing over him, shouting. And then his mouth formed the words: “Dungeon Meld: Finalize.”

  Awareness exploded through him. Energy coursed through him. In a split-second, his mind expanded like an upsurging flame. A moment before, he had been overwhelmed, unable to even think. Now, the surplus of energy in his dungeon system tore through him, lifting him up, powering him, driving him.

  He became the bladehand. He became the skeleton duelists. He became the harpies and the tree demons, and he remained Marcus. The whole scene unfolded before him, and suddenly it was all so simple. How had he not known this before? It was obvious! He was the Master—the Master of them all.

  He drove the bladehand forward, through the pile of corpses, churning its way with its mighty claws through the packed mass of writhing ratmen. It ducked to enter the corridor.

  In the Harpy dungeon, he drove the fifty skeleton duelists to the door and out, clattering down the corridor on bony feet, the three harpies close behind.

  As Marcus, he took a running jump and leaped clean over the heads of the Gutter Gang, landing with a mighty crash and a roar in the midst of the dwarves. His mace was in one hand, and his sword in the other. His onslaught was so ferocious that the dwarves fell back, giving the Gang a moment to reform.

  “Hero’s Might!”

  “Fleetfoot!”

  “Hero’s Might!”

  “Fleetfoot!”

  Every time the spells wore off after a massive expenditure of energy, he simply cast them again. The power of the dungeons, the huge swathes of enemies destroyed in their depths, empowered Marcus, allowing him to cast the spells in quick succession without any sign of his energy faltering.

  On the other side of the hall, the dungeon monsters exploded out of their doorways. Together, they charged through the broken and still-burning wreckage of the barricade.

  The monsters were outside the dungeon now.

  The press of ratmen and Sewer Slayers around the battle spiders turned in dismay, not knowing where this new threat was coming from.

  Marcus let his entire awareness slip into the bladehand.

  His body was iron and gold, and he moved like a juggernaut through the wreck of his enemies. Ratmen abandoned the attack on the Gutter Gang and turned to face him and the skeleton duelists that swarmed around him. Two harpies attacked a battle spider, ripping off its rusty iron plating to tear at the soft, pale flesh of its head.

  He whirled his four enormous swords, and they flashed and sang in the air around him. With great sweeps of his blades, he smashed the smaller enemies out of the way, heading straight for the biggest battle spider.

  The monster became aware of him and turned sharply, raising an armored claw to strike him. He glanced at the Gutter Gang’s shield wall just past the spider. The faces of the Gang had changed from terror to amazement. Encouraged by their new monstrous allies, they pressed the attack again, charging forward to kill ratmen and Slayers. Through the bladehand’s eyes, he saw Kairn bringing down a battle spider off to his left. He had a strange moment when he caught a glimpse of himself as Marcus, healing the wounded in the center of the Gang’s spear unit again.

  He leaned forward and spun his bladed hands at the spider’s legs. It batted at him with armored claws, but the blows slammed ineffectually against his iron body. He cut the spider’s legs to bits with two of his blades. It crashed to the ground in front of him, chittering as its face slammed into the hard ground. With his massive sword hands, he tore through its iron helmet, churning through the head inside and spattering spider brains across the floor.

  Marcus blinked. He was back in his body, in the center of the Gang. Gutter Gang members were swaying to their feet again, white faced and wide-eyed, their hands gripping the blood-slicked shafts of their weapons. Marcus looked around.

  The pressure on the front of the Gang was easing, but the pressure from the dwarves and city guard was increasing. They were fresh, and the dwarves were highly trained. It was all Marcus could do to keep up with healing the flow of the wounded.

  The new dungeon monster allies were making a difference, but there were still many enemies to fight on that side. The danger was far from over.

  Marcus was considering whether he could try to bring a group of the skeleton duelists up through the Gang to fight the dwarves and the city guard when something unexpected happened. Through the hole in the roof, dead bodies began to fall. Three, four, five, guards came crashing down to smash on the floor below with a wet, loud thud.

  The dwarves fighting in the chamber looked back, unsure what was about to happen. Five figures appeared, climbing hand-over-hand down the ropes. Who were they? For a moment, Marcus couldn’t tell. He gazed at them in amazement as they dropped to the ground and charged the dwarves from behind.

  They were his adventurers!

  Anja, Ben, Jonah, Jek, and Tyler had all somehow gotten wind of what was happening and came to help. But they were not alone. What was this? More and more figures were descending the ropes, armed with a variety of weapons.

  They were skinny, underfed people, armed with sticks and clubs, pitchforks and cleavers, and here and there some rusty mail or an old sword. What in the world?

  Marcus didn’t have time to wonder. He was about to charge through to meet them when magic tore through him again.

  Dungeon Master: Evolution Boost

  He cast the spell without hesitation. He had no way of knowing what would happen, but his instinct told him it would be good. A blast of blue light flashed from him, expanding outward through the packed tunnel.

  The Gutter Gang gave a great shout and surged forward from both sides. Down the tunnel, Marcus felt the bladehand grow in size and the skeleton duelists increase in speed and agility.

  The Gang seemed reinvigorated as soon as he cast the spell. They suddenly dropped their defensive stance, charging forward. They broke formation suddenly, each fighter tearing into the enemy with incredible speed. Marcus saw Kairn—the dwarf seemed to have doubled in size. He roared like a bear as he chewed through the remaining enemies.

  Jay traded blows with a dwarf, his broadsword clashing with the dwarf’s axe. Hammer was by his side, diving to hamstring the dwarf as Jay battered down his guard. The new arrivals, led by Anja, flooded through the hall, driving the city guard against the beleaguered dwarves and cutting them down one by one.

  Marcus’s mace began to glow. The green, egg-shaped gem in the center of it bloomed with an internal light, as if a fire trapped within the stone. He thrust the light into the air, and it shone out with a sudden radiance. He looked up. High up in a dark corner of the ceiling, he saw a small green figure. It was Ella, and she was smiling at him.

  And then it was over.

  The last of the dwarves fell under Kairn’s axe. The remnants of the ratmen fled screaming down the tunnel, scrambling from the skeleton duelists as quickly as they could. The Slayers were all gone, killed or fled. The battle spiders were huge wrecks of broken iron and mail and pale flesh.

  Marcus felt the dungeons flickering and beginning to close.

  Dungeon Master: Level 3

  Dungeon Chambers: 4

  Dungeons Fights: 8

  Progress to next chamber: 200%

  Two New Chambers available!

  Instinct made him hold up his shining mace and cast the spell to close the dungeons.

  Normally, he would cast this spell as he stood in front of a
dungeon’s entrance. A bright light would shine onto his hand and turn into a dungeon sphere. Now, the light shone up the tunnel from where the doorways had been placed. The bladehand, the duelists, and the harpies all shimmered and disintegrated into beams of bright light that shot at the mace’s crystal. Instead of turning into individual spheres, Marcus felt the dungeons all vanish into the mace crystal. The dungeon table, which had been swamped under a pile of dead ratmen, was de-summoned as well, and came into the mace’s crystal.

  The crystal flashed and shimmered for a moment, then darkened. The dungeons were within it now, Marcus knew, and all he would have to do to place one was point the mace and cast the spell.

  “A mobile dungeon library,” Ella said into his ear.

  He turned and smiled at her. Tiredness suddenly washed over him, but he resisted it and walked into the hallway, looking for his adventurers.

  They stood together in the middle of the hall, surrounded by ragged but proud-looking people. Marcus looked around and realized suddenly who they were. They were the slum-dwellers! Somehow, Anja and the adventurers had raised an army of slum-dwellers to come to their aid!

  Marcus clasped hands with Jonah, Jek, and Tyler, but when he went to clasp hands with Ben, the big guy pulled him into a bearhug.

  Anja just smiled at them both.

  Kairn and Jay came up beside Marcus, and the Gutter Gang, pushing up their blood-stained helmets and leaning on each other, crowded up behind.

  “What’s happened here?” Marcus asked after he’d thanked them all. “How is it that you came to be here?”

  Anja smiled. “Shall we perhaps go up into the open to explain? I could use a breath of air after all that fighting.”