by Dakota Krout
“What is that supposed to mean?” A young cleric started panicking. Were my poems really that bad?
“The roof! It’s collapsing!”
~ Cal ~
I watched as the two groups closed in on each other. As expected, the necromancers were allowing their zombies to take the lead. I looked on as they started across the large trap that Dale had pointed out, laughing as a pillar of stone launched upward into the ceiling. I liked this trap. The pillar was about ten feet in diameter, and when a certain percentage of it was crossed a reaction occurred underneath it, making a huge amount of pressure build. At the halfway point, the pressure was released and the whole thing blasted upward. Eight Goblins were caught in the trap, and as it receded, a thick paste was all that remained of the once-three-dimensional Goblins. I winced at the sight; those were my Goblins. Though I was pleased at the effectiveness of the device, I still was upset about the desecration of their bodies. The necromancers would pay for this. Somehow.
With the trap disarmed, the group of men hurried along, silent and serious for the first time. That trap could have killed any of them except the Mage, and even he may have been slightly damaged. The zombies weren't allowed to shamble anymore, breaking into a light jog. Traps began to spring, all of them earth-themed to go with the path they chose. Spikes shot out of the walls, rocks fell, pits opened up, and acid sprayed! The last Goblin corpse collapsed, unable to sustain itself.
“Good thing we had those with us,” one of the men sneered and kicked the melting body out of his way. “Would have been a pain to go slow enough to move around those.” They walked up to where a fork in the path would have been, but the smooth wall in the left doorway forced them to the right. They walked into a room that was identical to the one Dale was in, sighing when they saw the pedestal.
“What do you think it will be?”
“Either the place will fill up with sand, the walls will close in, or the ceiling will slowly drop. Just like every other dungeon out there.”
“Hey, another piece of the poem on this rock just uncovered. It says: A challenger appears, will this end in victory, or tears?”
“Yup, there it goes. The roof is dropping. Why does this trap show up in practically every dungeon?”
The Mage interjected, “I’ll hold it up, smash the wall where the exit should be.” The C-rankers pulled hammers and picks from their interspatial storage bags, one of them finding the exit by pushing a burst of necrotic Essence through the walls and finding empty space. These people… as much as I needed them to fail and die, I was impressed by their professionalism and flexibility in dangerous situations.
The men started swinging their tools, doing almost no damage to the walls. The walls had been built with a combination of corruption and Runes; they would need to be way stronger if they wanted to break my work. I was gloating to myself, watching the ineffectual attacks. The Mage held up a hand, the ceiling coming to rest on his palm. Seemingly bored, he simply held it in place as I increased the weight. I kept adding layers of stone on the top. This trap was designed to match the strength of the people in the room almost exactly, so I had created a way to reach that point! I started noting signs of strain on the Mage as I reached the ten-ton point. Both his hands were now being used, and he had adjusted into a much more solid stance.
“Yah need to hurry up, boys!” The Mage grunted through gritted teeth. “Starting to get annoyed over here.”
I glanced at the room Dale was in, silently applauding their tenacity. All of the clerics and Dale were working to hold up the ceiling, none of them diving for the little room off to the side that would deactivate the trap. I had created this trap to get rid of disloyal people, people who couldn’t be trusted. After the fiasco with The Collective–when the leader had joined Dale’s group and used them to get close enough to steal Dani–I had thought of this design. Anyone trying to save themselves and let their people die would instead end up saving them at the cost of their own life. To escape, all they needed to do was attempt to hold it up. Just long enough to almost collapse from exhaustion.
Of course, when two groups met and went into the rooms at roughly the same time, they would compete to have a winner. Losing team would be crushed. Of course, that was only if the game were fair. Right now… it wasn’t looking good. The necromancers were infusing huge amounts of Essence into their weapons, and with each swing, they pushed infernal taint into the Runes holding the stone together. The Runes were weakening, the Essence causing interruptions and damage to their structural integrity. Feeling they were getting close, the invaders shifted tactics.
One pulled out a strange weapon. It was an awl connected to a pickaxe shaft. The others exchanged their picks for hammers. The awl-man swung, chipping into the stone and holding in place. The next swung a hammer, driving the awl in deeper. The hammer dropped just in time for the next hammer to land. Each strike released Essence and drove the awl in.
“Just a little more!” The awl-man cried out. The hammers flew, fast and furious. A final blow shattered the Rune in the stone, creating a chain reaction of force. Half the wall exploded, the Runes detonating and odd shapes forming. Before anything could be resolved from the shadows, the Mage released a wall of black flames, incinerating any life that had been trying to form from the twisted paths in the air.
“Out! Out!” The Mage screeched, directing Mana around himself. His shadow seemed to drift forward, raising itself from the floor as it did so. In a moment, there was a pitch-black version of himself safely outside of the room. His form flickered, and he and the shadow exchanged places. The stone slammed to the ground, and the men cheered as dust rose around them. I frowned, also releasing the pressure on Dale’s group. Technically this team had lost, so Dale’s people were free to go.
A blast of hellfire roasted Snowball as he leapt from the concealing steams, making me grunt in annoyance.
The Mage’s team rushed onward, thinking their goal was in sight… and found a stairwell. “Those lying Guild bastards!” the Mage roared as he found the empty room. “This was supposed to be the end!”
“What do we do, boss?”
“We hurry up!” They rushed down the stairwell as Dale began to speak.
“Cal, I don’t know if you care, but there is an attack going on above us. Necromancers invaded and are killing people. I’m trying to protect these clerics, but I need to rescue more people. Will you help us?” Dale’s words echoed hollowly, like he was not expecting to receive anything but scorn.
He deserved scorn. Dale was weak; he was lying on the ground trembling from exertion. He couldn’t fight these people, he couldn't inflict a bit of damage to them if he shattered his Core while hugging them! But. But, he wasn’t giving up. It was something.
~ Dale ~
He was so shocked that the dungeon had answered. Especially that it had answered nicely! Dale looked around, wincing as his torn muscles twitched in pain. There was the chest! He stood up, cycling Essence through his body to speed the healing process. The clerics were still on the ground, but the strongest among them were beginning to heal themselves, then the others. Dale opened the chest, pulling out only a keygem. He looked at it, confused. It was a soft pink color, and didn’t match any of the others he had found to this point.
Dale felt a sudden relief, looking to the side to see a cleric working to fix his damaged body. The cleric suddenly grimaced and paled. “Ugh. You have a lot more damage than the last one. It goes so deep too… What have you been doing to yourself? This isn’t all from just now, some of it is beginning to scar. Good God, man!” He almost puked as Essence flowed out of him. “That�
�s all I can do for now, you need to get to the church after this is over. Have you been living on a diet of healing potions or something?”
“Thank you, either way,” Dale stated abruptly, shaking the cleric’s hand. “I feel better than I have in weeks! Let’s get moving.”
The entire group started walking, stepping into the heart of the maze. Dale looked around, expecting to see Snowball appearing from the steam. Noting a chunk of seared flesh and the acrid smell of burnt fur, Dale blanched. “They’re in here too…”
Looking around, he noticed that something was different. The Silverwood tree was gone! That meant… “The dungeon grew again. A new level?” He walked to the stairwell, inspecting it for a moment before turning to the portal. Dale held up the keygem, and a soft pink light matching the keygem emanated from the portal. Stepping through, his eyes widened, and he grinned.
“Get in here!” Dale ordered the clerics. They piled through, looking around with great interest. “I’m going back to the surface. I’m going to start sending people through as I find them, so get ready to take care of the wounded!”
The clerics nodded to him. Dale switched his keygem, stepping through the portal into hell on earth. An entire wall of the church had been shattered, exposing the arena to the natural and unnatural forces at play on the mountain. Wind laced with snow howled through the gap in the stone barrier, pushing some less balanced undead off of their feet as a layer of ice rapidly formed. A small crowd of people had collected in the arena, trying their best to hold off the ravenous dead. Dale called out to them, getting their attention at once.
“Start evacuating into the portal! I need someone to get over here and be in charge of keeping it open or closing it if we start to get overrun!” Dale ordered as loudly as he could, his voice just barely being heard over the wind and screams. The non-combatants charged at him, nearly trampling others in their rush to escape. Dale had to scream at them in order to be paid attention to, and they still dove through the portal like maniacs.
“Good to see you, Dale! Having a good night?” Hans’ cheeky voice cut through the hubbub. Dale turned to see him poking holes in the undead, his daggers punching through their spines and incapacitating the bodies. Then the remainder of Dale’s team would smash the skull, and the body would stop moving as grey matter leaked out.
“Two points of repair if the necromancer tries to raise the bodies again,” Hans explained as he caught Dale’s disgusted look. “It’d be better to burn them, but we don’t have that kind of time right now.”
Dale had to take a deep breath. “I cannot tell you all how much I missed you.”
The others rushed over and fell into formation. Hans snorted at Dale as he threw a dagger that seemed to ignore the wind. “No need to get all weepy! Are you going to break into song? Cry, perhaps?”
Dale studiously ignored him. “Has anyone else seen any survivors? Anyone at all that we can rescue?”
Tom spoke loudly, pretending not to be impacted by the cold, “There are pockets of resistance at the Guild, a few shops, and almost any building made of stone. That is, if they weren’t destroyed in the start of the fight.”
“We need to get to the shops first,” Adam demanded insistently. “They will have fewer fighters and a greater chance of being overrun, and we need to go now if we are going to have a chance at saving them.”
“Let’s go, then!” Rose turned and ran for the demolished wall. The others behind her caught up just as there was a break in the storm.
The area was littered with shambling bodies, and tree-tall abominations were moving, shaking the earth with each ponderous step. The Mages from the area were counter-attacking, the energy moving through the air hot enough to vaporize the falling precipitation. Mist was beginning to settle across the ground, further hindering visibility. One of the abominations screamed. Not in pain, but fury.
It was surrounded by a huge wall of thorns, each of which was barbed and oversized. The thorns drove into the diseased flesh, grasping and refusing to let go. The abomination thrashed, tearing itself free but leaving huge tracts of tissue behind. It tried to reabsorb the flesh, only to find that it was trapped again. The brambles got thicker, and denser, until movement was impossible. An opportunistic Mage used this chance to light the brambles on fire and burned the abomination with unmatched heat.
The Mages were fighting the undead, but this was palliative; they were the symptom, not the true cause of the night’s horrors. While the most powerful members of the council were pausing the advance of the towering flesh, others were searching high and low for the necromancer acting as puppet master. Dale’s group ran across the open area, drawing the attention of many lesser undead. Han’s advice and tactics were followed exactingly when fighting the dead, and the party targeted the brain and the spine whenever the opportunity presented itself.
“Where are we going?” Tom shouted as he swung his Warhammer in a half-moon arc. When he attacked something, there was no need to slow and finish the job. Usually the upper half of what he hit would turn to a pulp, painting crimson whatever was behind his target.
Rose responded harshly, her voice damaged by the cold and yelling, “We’re going to Tyler’s store! It is doubly reinforced, since they’ve been conducting experiments on things that explode!”
“They’ve what?” Dale yelled in shock, almost halting his attacks.
“Are you really surprised about that, Dale?” Adam laughed as Dale’s face contorted.
Rose continued, “I’m betting they’ve gathered as many people as they can, and then barricaded themselves inside. Oh…” Rose trailed off as the group skid to a halt. Five necrotic Mages stood in front of them, almost as astonished as Dale’s group.
“What the…?” The dark Mage closest to them laughed. “Really? Volunteers! Excellent!”
A ripple of inky darkness sped toward Rose, who was standing in the front of the group. She yelped, twisting unsuccessfully to dodge out of the way. She squeezed her eyes shut… opening them in a moment when nothing began to hurt. Rose stared at the form before her. Golden white hair spilled down from the head, a body standing erect in a noble pose. What surprised her most were the twin sheaths hanging down the person's back. Rose took a step back, to fully take in the view of the man who had saved her.
“Assaulting youngsters like this? Villains, your time has come. Justice has arrived!” The man raised his twin swords, their edges reflecting the necromancers’ wide eyes.
~ Chapter Twenty-Six ~
“What kind of a cheesy line was that?” a dark Mage howled with laughter. “‘Justice has arrived’! Ha-ha-ha!”
The golden haired man blushed slightly. “Your taunts only highlight thine craven nature. Answer two questions for me, and thou shalt perish swiftly.”
“Sure, why not? We are only ransacking a city. We have time to visit.” The Mages laughed again as weapons were raised.
“It is much appreciated,” the man spoke peacefully. “Firstly, hast thou seen a disturbing, greasy, perverted old man?”
“We weren’t being serious. Get out of the… you know what? Why not.” The Mage seemed to deflate. “No, we haven’t seen anyone like that.”
“Secondly then, where is the person controlling yonder abominations? They must needs be held accountable for their despicable actions.” The swords were beginning to shine, garnering everyone's undivided attention.
The Mages ignored his words, throwing themselves forward. Mana rose like a wave, crashing down upon the golden man. A beam of light slashed the wall of darkness, and the man stepped through the resulting mephitis calmly.
Adam grabbed Dale, his eyes wide. He was trembling. “Dale. We need to leave. We need to leave now.”
“I agree, let’s slip away, and-” Dale started scooting backwards.
“No!” Adam shouted, shaking him harder than his thin form should allow. “Run! Run now, all of you! There is only one person who that could be! That’s Kere Nolsen!”
Adam turned and st
arted sprinting away, slipping once before scrambling to his feet. The others, bemused by his oddly changed personality but still trusting him implicitly, ran with him. Dale heard Kere speaking behind him. “Let the trial begin! I judge you as…”
Dale’s group had only made it a few meters when the world turned white. Not in the same way as an explosion, but as though all pigment had been drained away. Only shades of black and white remained. Every sound seemed to echo strangely, and Dale, concerned, looked at his friends. A scream slipped out of his lips as he did so.
Each of them had also been drained of color, leaving them looking flat. Only one color returned then. Black. The darkness crawled across them, leaving tracks like mud. For some reason, the hue was terrifying. Dale turned to Hans and nearly fainted. Hans was coated in black, with only his central being still shining with a flat white. He tried to avert his eyes, and his gaze landed upon a man dancing on the roof of a building.
This must be the person the golden man had been looking for. Dale didn’t know why, or what it meant, but the man didn’t have a speck of black on him. He was stripping erotically though, prompting Dale to look away from him in shock. Dale’s eyes flashed back, trying to keep track of him, but the man was already gone.
“Guilty!” Kere announced, his words echoing across the desaturated space. “I can see the sins crawling up your back! Your soul craves redemption, but all I can offer… is justice!”
Dale looked over his shoulder as color seemed to return to the world. There was a small mushroom-shaped cloud of blood in the area behind them, where Kere had last been seen.
“Why did we run from that area?” Tom snarled as they approached Tyler’s shop. “We could have helped.”