by Dakota Krout
He glanced around and noticed a few shell-shocked witnesses, right away marching over to them. “What happened?”
He received a blank look in return from the cowering man. Dale slapped him, and the man finally mumbled, “Cindy… Cindy. She… she’s so good to me.”
Dale gripped the man, and spat out through gritted teeth, “What. Happened.”
Unfocused eyes looked up at him. “So thin. Ow. So strong. Very wow.” Dale shook him again. “Jeez, stop! A column of light came out of the ground and ate her. The ground ate her!”
“Dale, what’s happening? Let him go, you are hurting him!” Rose strode over, looking at the gathering crowd. Dale let go of the man, who already had a bruise in the shape of a hand forming on each arm. The man sunk to the ground sobbing.
“Sorry, buddy.” Dale handed the man a healing potion from his pocket. He always had spares in his pockets these days. “Rose, it looks like the dungeon somehow opened a pit or something. I think a few people fell in, and it closed on them.”
“It got to the surface? That isn’t supposed to be possible.” Rose gasped at the revelation.
“I… I don’t know what to do about this,” Dale admitted ruefully. “I’ll let the council know; they can come up with a plan.”
“Sounds good. Um. When you are done, come to the dungeon, I assume you’ll miss breakfast, so I’ll grab you something.” Rose turned and went to find the rest of their team. She looked back at him with a grin. “By the way, we have some new toys to try out.”
Dale had no idea what that meant, so he nodded and went to tell the council of his findings. Running into Frank, he quickly gave him a synopsis of the situation and went to find Rose. As she had told him, the rest of the team was already there, sly grins on their faces as Dale walked up.
“Hi all, what’s going on?” Dale looked around at the nearly dancing members of his team.
“Can I tell him?” Hans begged the others, nearly jumping up and down. Normal for him, but the others were just as excited.
“No!” Rose exclaimed, glaring at him. “Tyler will be here any second. Just let him have his moment.”
Tyler came up to them just then, huffing and puffing as he carried a large case. A few people were carrying boxes for him, and he thanked them and gave them a coin for their trouble. “Dale! You are going to love this!” Tyler started opening boxes. “We were up all night testing various methods to use the materials you all brought us and came up with some interesting innovations!” He pulled out a quiver of arrows and handed them to Rose.
“I call these ‘Oppressive Arrows’. As the name suggests, we use material from the ‘Oppressor’ type Basher. What it should do is generate a spiral of wind around it when it gets to a certain speed. This will make the arrow spin in place ten times faster than feathers allow for, greatly increasing accuracy and penetrating power!” Tyler explained gleefully. “Not exactly an Enchantment but far more cost-effective!”
Next he pulled out a small net that was sewn to be a bag filled with a plant. He looked a little nervous about this one. “Alright now, let me explain something. We have tested the weapons, and they work in a controlled environment… but most of this gear is untested in reality. The reason we are giving all of this to you is because we were hoping you would test it for us in the dungeon. But… well, just keep your weapons handy.”
Some of the excitement left the faces around Dale. Tyler blithely continued, “This handy little satchel is filled with crushed and invigorated dungeon catnip. It can be used for two different purposes. If you aren’t currently fighting them, tossing this satchel at a Cat should be sufficient to make it ignore you. Otherwise, you can use it as a lure to draw more Cats in. If you burn it, the smoke will make them come running. Careful with this.” Tyler handed a few to Hans, much to the horror of his comrades.
“You say be careful with it, then hand it to Hans?” Adam spoke in a hushed tone.
Hans’ jaw dropped. “I’m careful!”
Tyler looked around to see if they were serious. He shrugged expansively. “I’m just gonna keep going. Essentially, we were able to make weapons or armor out of most of the Beasts. From Raile, we were able to make a disposable shield. If you touch it to the ground, it’ll stick there and basically become an immovable barrier. It is stone though, so it will shatter given enough force. We made something similar out of the Smashers, but we’re marketing it as instant handholds. Touch it to a wall, and bam, you have a hand or foothold. Slightly larger ones can be used as platforms.”
“You did this in a night?” Dale wondered incredulously, awed at the variation between the items.
Tyler cracked his knuckles. “It pays to have people from such differing backgrounds to work on these. We even have…” He looked around. “Don’t laugh, but we have a scientist.”
Hans chortled against instructions, getting a glare for his trouble.
“What is a scientist?” Adam asked the question everyone was thinking.
Tyler started to reply, but Hans interrupted and took over the explanation, “A scientist is a person who tries to measure the world, saying that there are ‘immutable’ laws that affect everyone equally. Laws that can’t be broken. They try to explain things in terms of the effect they have, how ‘dense’ they are, or anything rather than by the Essences they are composed of.”
Tyler, rubbed his head. “He has some great ideas though. His work on gravity alone could-”
“I’ve heard of that!” Hans interjected. “Yeah, gravity is real, but it isn’t a universal constant!” He picked up a rock, dropping it. It landed on the ground. “Dale, lift that rock with Essence!”
Apologetically looking at Tyler, Dale lifted the small stone with a speck of Essence, and it hovered in the air. Hans looked smug. “Oh, look. Something gravity isn’t affecting. Theory disproven.”
Tyler wryly retaliated, “Dale, stop using Essence, but don’t drop the rock.” Dale cut off the flow of Essence, and the rock thudded to the ground. “Oh, look. Now that the rock isn’t being acted upon by an outside force, gravity reasserts its dominance.”
“It doesn’t affect everything! It can be disproven by, uh, Dale, lift that rock and-” Hans started saying.
“No!” Dale barked. He grinned at the looks he got from the arguing men. “We have things to do, argue with each other later.”
“Fine!” The two men spoke in unison, then glared at each other.
Tyler coughed, trying to recapture the moment. “Uh. The other items are still being worked on, but if you would test these I would appreciate it.”
“Sure thing, Ty.” Dale waved and joined his group as they walked toward the dungeon portal.
~ Dani ~
The cloth that was covering the cage Dani was being held in was yanked away, and her light revealed a strange stone formation. “Where are we?” she demanded of the man suspending her in front of himself.
Dark eyes landed on her. “Where are we…?”
Dani sighed in frustration. “Where are we, ‘The Master’?
“Still in the sewer, little Wisp.” He motioned, and a few people stepped forward. The Master set Dani’s cage on a stone outcropping and spoke over his shoulder at her, “You are about to witness a great miracle.”
Dani had no choice but to watch as one of the people stepped forward from the group, a fanatical look in his eyes. “I beg of you Master, use me for this task! I have been your most loyal follower and will continue to be, forever!”
The Master looked at him with a cold smile. “It will be forever, if you do this. I will confer immortality upon you, allowing you to avoid the trials of human cultivation and weakness. Are you prepared for this to be your afterlife?” He waved to indicate the world.
“We have all seen what awaits us in the afterlife, Master,” The man spoke sincerely, shuddering a bit. “If you allow me this honor, I will prove my faithfulness every day!”
The Master was quiet for a long moment. “So be it.” His voice thundered out
, and around them, a cheer rose into the air from the assembled forces. He looked out into the crowd and began to speak, “Ten years I have been working on this, ten long years of my attention on a single object. This, and the sacrifice of our brother, will open the path… to our ascension!” The cheers were deafening.
“I have never led you astray; I have never lied to you,” The Master spoke again as the cheering quieted. “Do you trust me to lead you into the future?”
“Yes, Master, YES!” the crowd bayed.
The volunteer was being stripped by the two attendants standing with him, and he joyfully lay on a stone altar, tears of happiness rolling down his face.
“What in the abyss is going on?” Dani muttered, looking at all of these psychopaths.
Infernal energies began to flood from The Master, a miasmic aura that seemed to howl in rage. Dani was far more terrified when she realized that this must be spiritual energy. It was far too powerful to be Essence or even Mana. The world seemed to shudder in its presence, colors fading to gray. The monotone hue spread throughout the open cavern, allowing vision to what had been the darkest corners, but there was now no light nor darkness.
“Behold the monotony of the void, Brother.” The Master rested his hand on the man lying on the altar. “There is no escape for your soul here, no way for you to be yanked away by the piddling God that demands a natural death for all things. Are you prepared to save us all?”
“Yes!” The man howled in excitement. “To immortality! For the will of The Master!”
The Master nodded and turned to the crowd, raising his arms. “Now, shall we begin!” he roared, not as a question, but as a way to rile up the awaiting fiends.
The crowd was loud enough to shake dust from the low ceiling. “Sacrifice him! Sacrifice him!”
In his hand, The Master held aloft a chunk of purest opal. “In this artifact, there is one item that will save us all, nay, it shall push us into power the world over!” He turned to the altar. “To victory!”
“To victory!” the man lying down echoed along with the waiting masses.
The Master raised his hand… and slammed the opal deep into the eagerly awaiting heart of the man before him. A concussion of power flowed from The Master into the glittering stone, trapping the soul of the man before him. In a moment, the twisted ritual was complete.
Covered in gore, the Dark cloaked man stepped toward the strange rock formation. A pitch-black stalagmite and stalactite were nearly touching. The Master pulled the opal out of the fresh corpse with a wet *slurp*. He placed the stone between the unnatural rock formations just as the opal crumbled away. “It begins!” he intoned solemnly. “Bring forward the offerings!”
Dani watched in horror as the newly born Infernal Dungeon Core began to glow with a dark maroon light.
~ Chapter Fourteen ~
“Haven’t seen Evan in a while,” Dale commented as they arrived on the third floor. He missed the Dwarf-Orc hybrid. “I bet this floor is dripping with gold at this point. He’d like that.”
Adam grunted, an odd sound coming from such a lustrous face. “I am told that he is on vacation.”
“Oh? Who told you that?” Hans questioned the cleric. “Who’s your source?”
Adam’s eyebrow twitched. “People will answer questions if you ask them for information.”
“Eavesdropping is more fun.” Hans strolled through what–for all intents and purposes–seemed to be a meadow. “I could just take a nap in here, ya know?”
“Look, another person alone in here,” Rose commented, pointing to the east. The person she was referencing was hidden behind a grove of trees by the time the others turned to look. “Strange, I saw someone like that the other day, too.”
Tom shrugged and changed the subject, “Why are we on this floor? Cultivation is best done near the Silverwood tree.”
“We have a job request,” Adam informed him. “Someone saw the ‘Wandering Boss’ with a staff that he was using to blast infernal Essence as bolts of darkness. We were asked to acquire the staff and trim down the Goblin population.”
“It does look pretty crowded over there.” Rose was staring at a fortification in the distance.
“Apparently a couple parties were wiped out recently, so people got too nervous to fight regularly on this floor. Not enough adventurers are hunting down the Goblins, so if something isn’t done soon they are worried a breakout will occur,” Dale quickly explained. Looks like the council meetings were good for something after all.
“Rose, wanna soften them up?” Hans offered quietly. They were getting close enough that speaking too loudly would draw very unwanted attention.
Rose shook her head. “Sorry, they are still out of range.”
“Try out the new arrows,” Hans suggested, pulling out an oppressive arrow. Rose glared at him.
“Hans, I said that I am out of range.” Her frustration was boiling over with this maddening man!
He waved a hand frantically to remind her to keep it down. “Tyler said these would be more accurate, right? More penetrating power, too. All this adds up to longer range on your shots. Try it. I believe in you.”
Rose was quiet at that point. She grudgingly set an arrow to her string, drew back, and fired. The arrow screamed through the air, hitting a Goblin in the chest and punching through the fresh corpse to hit the stone wall behind it. She stared down at her bow, happily surprised by this development.
Tom raised an eyebrow at her. “Did you forget that your bow has a force enhancement enchantment? You should have been able to hit him even if using a regular arrow.”
“It hasn’t activated before this,” she muttered, looking at her faintly glowing bow. The light vanished almost instantly.
Adam chimed in, “Maybe you need to aim at things beyond your normal range?”
She slowly nodded as the Goblins began to howl a warning. “That would explain it. I haven’t practiced at this range before, ever. I’ve been practicing other things.”
“Well, don’t stop now!” Hans called as a few Mobs started running in their direction. “Berserkers incoming!”
The berserker Goblins charged at them, howling their fury. They wore no armor but were agile enough to dodge normal arrows at close range. Tom and Dale started to move forward to intercept them, but Dale stopped himself.
“Wait, Tom!” Dale shook himself from his battle-lust. “We need to stay in formation!”
Tom looked over with a face full of disgust. “Why the change? Our combat to this point has been effective, to say the least.”
“Get in formation, Tom,” Dale barked as the Goblins reached them. Goblin archers were also running toward them, hoping to get in range before the berserkers fought. Tom reluctantly yet swiftly rejoined the formation. He swung his ingot hammer in an upward arc, cracking the chin of a Goblin which had lost its footing. With Dale and Tom holding the Goblins back, Hans worked to move between the small battles. He appeared to vanish, popping up next to a Goblin and delivering a swift strike then moving to where he was needed next. The teamwork began to pay off as more melee fighters joined. Without the team working together, they would have been trampled by the sheer numbers of furious Goblins.
Rose focused on sniping the Goblins that were preparing to launch a volley of arrows; her shots devastating now that she had figured out how to activate the enchantment on her bow. She accidently used a normal arrow, and it detonated into splinters as the bowstring tried to send it off. Rose shrieked as the splinters dug into her, slicing through her left eyelid. Adam grabbed her face to stabilize her, coating his fingers in luminescent golden light. A quick pull removed the shard from her eye without doing more damage, and a muttered Incantation healed her eye to its normal state.
Tears were flowing down her face as she angrily jumped to her feet and started firing arrows again, being far more careful in her selection of ammo. “Thank you!
” she called to Adam as he moved to address a deep cut Dale had taken on his bicep.
“It’s what I do!” Adam called back with a grin, already working on holding Dale’s skin together as the flesh mended. As soon as Dale could use his arm again, he launched forward and delivered a devastating punch to a Goblin that was running at him. Dale twisted his fist as he activated the Runes on his knuckles, and a wet splatter of demolished organs hit the ground just moments before the Goblin did.
“Where are they all coming from?” Dale shouted over the *clang* of Tom’s weapon hitting a shield.
“That fortification!” Tom called back, continuing to put dents in the shield in front of him. With a *snap* the arm holding the barrier in place broke, and the Goblin howled. Tom swung at the open target, and the howl cut off abruptly.
“Thank you, Tom, master of the obvious.” Hans thrust his dagger into an unprotected Goblin’s artery. “They must have been gathering for a reason, don’t ya think?”
The Goblins stopped leaving the fort, and the adventurers quickly finished off the last few that engaged with them. Adam looked at the closed gate, and the Goblins hatefully glaring out at them. “Why did they stop?”
“I have no idea.” Dale shook his head as the clangs of armored feet running toward them alerted the group. They turned to meet this challenge, only to see a human running toward them, completely covered in plate armor. “Who is that?”
“No idea,” Hans replied carelessly, “but if he doesn’t stop running at us in about three seconds, I’m goin’ to put a knife in him.”
“Hey!” Rose shouted at the still-running man. “What do you want?”
Adam’s face had turned as white as his robe. “That’s not a man! It’s a Mob! Take it down!”
“Don’t have to tell me more than once!” Tom happily spouted, running forward and delivering a powerful blow with his hammer. The armor ducked, dodging under the strike. It twisted at the waist in a way that a human never could, shooting a powerful punch straight upward. Catching Tom just above the elbow, the metal fist fully dislocated his arm with that single attack.