But, it still wasn’t what he had come here for – and the others knew it, too.
“Where is this treasure you promised us? This massive payday you were talking about – where is it? Because, this—” Gerthin pointed to the chest, which was already disappearing after they had removed all of the items— “is definitely not it.”
“It’s that way; can’t you all feel it with your Valuation Sense?” Marvus pointed towards one of the far walls, which he couldn’t actually see since it was so dark, but he instinctively knew it was there.
“No we can’t – you should know that.”
That was true, he did know that, but he had forgotten for a moment that they hadn’t trained the skill like he had. Honestly, he probably wouldn’t have felt it before he had hit Level 30 in his Valuation Sense skill, so he could understand. He explained all of that to the others, who begrudgingly agreed to investigate a little more.
His Sense led him and the others to the wall, where they couldn’t see any opening; however, after a bit of searching, they found another cleverly hidden access to a new passageway, similar to the one where he found the treasure chest a few rooms back. It made him feel even more like he was on the right track.
The passageway led to a largeish room, though it was only large because it was so long; he estimated that it was around 200 feet in length, and there didn’t appear to be anything inside defending the tunnel. On a second look, he saw small holes along the left and right walls, which he suspected had some sort of arrow or bolt trap, just waiting to strike out at them as they passed by. Further investigation showed some peculiar bulges in the ceiling, spaced out evenly along the room.
“Uh, boss? I’d turn your Detect Traps on if I were you,” Derf said, sounding a bit strangled for some reason.
Using his skill, the hallway was immediately flooded with light as traps were lit up all over the place. He tried to differentiate them but couldn’t, as they all blended into each other until they were all one giant mass. “Whoa! It’s too much, I can’t see them all.” Marvus deactivated the skill and everything went back to normal.
“I can see them, but it’s probably only because my Detect skill is so high, sort of like your Valuation Sense. I think my Disarm Trap skill is high enough to deactivate most of them, but that’s not the problem.”
Marvus looked at Derf, not liking to hear about problems at this stage. “What’s the problem?”
The trap-specializing Cohort member scratched the back of his head as he looked down the hallway. “Well, like I said, I can probably Disarm these, but it will take hours.”
Hours? We’ve already been here for 3 or 4 hours; any longer and we risk someone else finding out about this place and stealing my treasure. If that’s what it takes, though, we’ve already come this far. Besides, the last time he had gotten close to a Core, he had found a treasure trove of magnificent proportions. He said the same thing to the crew – leaving out details of what exactly happened – who all just shrugged in response. “I suppose we can wait a few more hours. Do your thing.”
Derf just sighed and got to work, getting on his knees and inching forward, with his hand outstretched. Marvus knew from experience that more difficult traps required a delicate touch as well as proximity, so it was dangerous to try disarming something that was powerful. Higher Levels in the Disarm Traps skill would allow disarming both quicker and from farther away, but these traps were apparently right at or near the top of the difficulty scale.
Now there wasn’t anything else to do but wait.
Chapter 11
Tacca was wrong.
“Expect the unexpected, I guess,” her Dungeon Assistant said, unhelpfully.
That didn’t make her feel any better, but he was right; she should’ve expected the group of Thieves and Brigands to have a specialist in trap detection and disarmament. Her previous thought that they would be too high of a Level to Disarm was a mistake, and it was one that she wouldn’t be making again. She would replace each of them one at a time, using both her larger Dungeon Force pool and the 40% reduction of trap costs to make them even more powerful, upping the requirement to Disarm them by a significant amount. It wouldn’t stop the extremely high-Level Raiders out there, but ones like those currently in her dungeon would have a difficult time Disarming even one of them. She couldn’t wait to enhance her security, after seeing the flaws in them.
Of course, she needed to get rid of these pesky pests first.
“I’m actually surprised they survived your Boss Room. I thought you had gone a little overboard, but in that case I was mistaken.”
She answered Shale with a low chuckle. No, you were right – I did go a bit far there with the amount of Wolves I created, but I really couldn’t hide my dislike of them all, especially that Marvus character. It was more than a bit wrong of me, I will freely acknowledge, and I shouldn’t let my emotions affect me like that. She felt bad that so many of the group had died, because she didn’t really have anything against them – only their leader. They had taken the brunt of her anger, however, and while they seemed as greedy as Marvus, she could tell that the now-dead Raiders were only following orders.
“That’s…quite astute of you to recognize that,” Shale said slowly, watching the Raiders working to slowly Disarm the traps in her defensive room from behind them. He had his Invisibility up, so they couldn’t see him – just like he had the entire time the Raiders had been inside of Tacca’s dungeon – but he had to be careful not to get too close or they might sense him. She wouldn’t put it past these people to have something that would allow them to do that, especially since she had underestimated them already. “But I think you’re being too hard on yourself,” he continued. “Based on their strength and numbers, a well-balanced group of 15 Raiders – let alone the 20 that they arrived with – would’ve been able to defeat everything you threw at them without casualties. It was only their lack of diversity that caused them to lose so many.”
Tacca had to admit that was true. The Boss Room was meant to be just barely beatable by a balanced group of 5 Raiders around Level 15, but even that was pushing it. Higher Levels would have a much easier time, and a group of Level 20s should have no trouble at all. Of course, everything was a little skewed by how many additional creatures she had added, including the 80 Level 3 Forest Wolves she had added to the Boss Room, after some of her Control Limit was freed up as the dungeon was cleared. Obviously, it was hard to judge whether or not her dungeon was suitable to those levels without an accurate test run.
Yes, I can see your point. But now that they have pushed on and deliberately sought after my Core Room—
“—all restrictions have been lifted,” Shale finished for her with a smile in the tone of his voice. “As Marvus said not long ago: Do your thing.”
Do her thing she would, too. The Gnoll Archmage was just now materializing in her Core Room, as it had taken the group a long time to get to this point, and she estimated that she had at least a couple of hours before she could expect the infiltrators to arrive, so she used some of her now-significant available Control Limit to add some helpers. She didn’t have enough time to create additional Archmages, but another Werewolf Warrior or two would probably go over well. Oh, and another 40 Forest Wolves and 40 Echoing Hyenas would only add to the party. Finally, to top it all off and ensure victory, Tacca also added in 6 Life-based traps inside of the room, where they would be impossible to Disarm without walking inside the room and suffering the full force of her onslaught.
Now, there was always the possibility that they would look inside of the room from the tunnel entrance and change their minds, for which she certainly couldn’t blame them. However, they had gone too far in what they were doing for Tacca to want them to leave, no harm no foul; they had violated her inner sanctum, and while she might let others get away – this was Marvus, one of those that had caused her unimaginable pain by destroying a Core she was Bonded to. There was no way she was letting him get away, as he had made his de
cision and was going to have to live with it.
She had tried to avoid the situation by filling the treasure chest that appeared after the Boss Room was cleared with superior rewards, but his greed was going to be his undoing. If she could avoid killing the others, as they didn’t necessarily deserve the same fate for following orders, she would; however, if they persisted even after seeing what was arrayed against them, then she would end them just as quickly as their leader.
To ensure – or at least increase the chance – that Marvus would want to fight, she started placing large veins of gold ore along the back of the Core Room, along with pockets of gemstones, including diamonds, interspersed along the stone surface. It took her nearly two hours before she was satisfied, and when she was done she was quite proud of herself. The wall, including a bit of the floor and ceiling nearby, was practically covered in shiny yellow ore, and the fragments of gems sticking out were particularly pleasing to the eye, sure to draw anyone in just to look at such a display – let alone be driven to possess it for themselves.
Shortly thereafter, the efforts of Marvus and the trap specialist led to their arrival at the end of the defensive room, with Derf? especially exhausted from his almost constant use of his Disarm Trap skill. There was a slight curve to the tunnel leading to her Core Room, which obscured what was ahead of them; as a result, they didn’t hesitate to move forward, until they came to the last few feet of the passageway, where they were able to view the defenses she had in place.
Her Gnoll Archmage was in the middle of the room, a figure with a deep-red robe, its face hidden by a hood; it was around the same height as the Thieves looking into the room, but the staff it held in its right hand was a little bit taller. Overall, it was relatively unassuming – but the two Werewolf Warriors to its left and right were more than enough of a frightening view for them. As for the 80 Wolves and Hyenas she had in the room, they were stationed slightly out of view to the left and right of the entrance, though if they peeked inside they could see them.
However, they only had eyes for the gold and gemstones filling up the back wall.
“Look! I told you that this was our big payday! This is even more than I had Sensed!” Marvus shouted in wonder, his eyes practically glossing over at the sight of so much wealth. Tacca wasn’t sure how he knew it was there through his Valuation Sense, because she thought it was only good for finished products – nor why he had Sensed something below before she had placed the gold and gemstones – but she guessed it didn’t really matter at this point.
“Yeah, boss – but look at what’s in the room.”
“I am looking at what’s in the room—oh,” the group leader said, seeing the creatures arrayed against them seemingly for the first time. He just shrugged them off, however. “Well, that shouldn’t be a problem; you need to spend money to make money, right?” He stepped into the room, put his hand inside of his bottomless bag, and then used the same skill he had used before to toss coins at Tacca’s creatures. This time, it wasn’t just silver, but gold that was flung out, and a massive handful to boot.
Yelps and yips of pain were suddenly cut off as dozens of Wolves and Hyenas were hit by the powerful attack, killing them instantly off to the sides of the room, which seemed to surprise Marvus; he obviously hadn’t planned for his skill to spread out so far hitting multiple targets, reducing its effectiveness. Luckily for him, the gold coins that he sent flying impacted the two Werewolves, which did a whole lot more damage than the silver; holes were blasted clean through their torsos, incapacitating – if not killing – them almost instantly.
A devastating attack, to be sure, though it apparently took almost everything out of Marvus, as he collapsed to his knees. The others filed in behind him to help kill the rest of the Wolves and Hyenas, which they immediately fell upon, their greed-lust giving them the determination to kill everything with abandon. The sheer destruction they caused among her creatures was astounding, but their sudden lack of self-preservation and defense led to horrendous wounds that they fought through. By some happenstance, they also managed to completely avoid the traps Tacca had placed on the floor; in short, they were taking advantage of the “good luck” that seemed to occur for Raiders in her dungeon.
What none of them seemed to recognize, however, was that the Gnoll Archmage stood in the center of the room, completely unscathed by the skill Marvus had used earlier, as a magical barrier had prevented anything from making an impact. As the 5 Thieves with Marvus started to slaughter the less-powerful creatures, the Gnoll raised its staff and pointed at one of the Raiders. A small ball of roiling flames appeared at the staff’s tip, before growing to 10 times its original size in no more than 2 seconds – and then it shot across the room with tremendous speed, slamming into the Thief and sending him flying into the wall, flames burning his clothes and his skin.
His screams were drowned out by the rest of the battle going on, and no one but Marvus saw it happen. Still on his knees, but slowly recovering by the second, Marvus shouted, “Gerthin! Take out that thing in the middle!”
The Assassin turned from killing Wolves to the middle of the room, and he disappeared from Tacca’s view. A few seconds later, however, he suddenly appeared – right in the middle of one of her traps. The surprised look on his face would’ve been comical if his body hadn’t suddenly expanded and then imploded, bursting apart as he collapsed in on himself.
Marvus’ reaction was priceless, though. He had his mouth open wide in shock as he got to his feet, looked around the room even as another fireball slammed into another one of his group, while a third Raider was suddenly overwhelmed by the remaining Wolves and Hyenas. At that point, the only ones left alive were Marvus and Derf, the trap specialist, and another fireball by the hooded figure took care of the latter.
Marvus, outnumbered and alone, stumbled as he turned to run, a fireball from the Archmage just missing him as it slammed into the tunnel wall he ducked around. Howls and echoing laughs from the 20-odd Wolves and Hyenas precipitated the chase as they went after him, but the Raider leader had finally got his strength and speed back, racing far ahead of the creatures chasing him.
“You’re just going to let him get away?” Shale asked.
No, of course not. Watch.
Marvus was halfway down the defensive room before he hit the first trap, a Disorientation Enchantment trap, which had reset itself after it had been Disarmed an hour and a half ago. At a run, the disorientation hit the Raider hard, and he stumbled and fell, right into a strong Fear Enchantment trap, which caused him to start screaming. Scared out of his wits and basically blind from his disorientation, he got up and started running, triggering one of the Poison traps on the ceiling. Stumbling through a cloud of dangerous poison, he started coughing up blood immediately, even as he accidentally stepped on another trap activation – this time one of the wall-mounted projectile traps.
Dozens of small needles shot out of the wall, piercing through his leather armor and impaling themselves an inch or two into the Raider’s flesh. The sudden attack disoriented Marvus even further, which caused him to turn around and flee in the other direction – right into the approaching group of Tacca’s creatures. Poisoned and bleeding from multiple wounds, he was knocked down as one of her Forest Wolves jumped and slammed into him. Even though he was on the ground, unable to breathe from the blood choking his throat, the Raider still had enough presence of mind to draw his long dagger and stab blindly outward, killing one of the Hyenas trying to get to him…but that was his last victory.
Two different Wolves clamped down on his arm and hand, causing him to drop his weapon. Marvus tried to extricate his limb, but it was no use; the blood loss was already weakening him, and after a few tugs that proved ineffective, he collapsed back in defeat. Tacca turned away as he was literally ripped apart, the savagery of her creatures a bit much, even if it was against the one that had wronged her.
Well now. That was quite the ordeal.
“I’d say,” Shale responded, al
so ignoring what was happening to Marvus as he flew to meet up with Tacca’s Core. “What are your plans now?”
I’m not exactly sure. After I clean up and reset everything, I’m going to start replacing some of these traps with more-powerful ones, because these ones just didn’t cut it. After that, well, I have a feeling we’ll be seeing some action soon.
“How so? Those 2 Hill Dwarves are supposed to be concentrating on getting the word out about the threats up north, remember?” Shale had better information than almost anyone about what was going on with the invaders destroying Cores and killing Raiders, so he was particularly invested in what the two Bonded Raiders were doing.
True, but it probably won’t be for long. Word will certainly get out about my dungeon being open again.
“From whom? Oh.”
The Thief that Marvus had backhanded, stolen from, and then sent away in disgrace had managed to find one of her exits hours ago, and he had left her dungeon not long after. She wouldn’t be surprised if he spread the news of her reemergence, especially since he looked somewhat familiar; from the conversations she had overheard, he had been to her dungeon before when it was just the one section. It was quite possible that the information on her presence was quite lucrative, so it wasn’t beyond reasonable doubt that he would sell that knowledge for a tidy profit.
Exactly. While they really should be concentrating on the threat steadily making its way from the north, I have a feeling most Raiders will ignore it in favor of delving through a dungeon their Level. That seemed to be particularly true for these latest Raiders, who only seemed to be looking for the next score.
The Dungeon Fairy: Three Lives: A Dungeon Core Escapade (The Hapless Dungeon Fairy Book 3) Page 11