by Nick Harrow
“You got that right,” Kezakazek called out of the darkness ahead of us. “Bring your tunnel over here. You’ll want to see this.”
I doubted that was true, but I did as Kezakazek asked and extended the tunnel forward until the golden light from its mouth illuminated the drow. She stood before a device even stranger and more complicated than the original gate had been.
Sheets of purest black silk were suspended in thick copper hoops. Arcs of silver chain were connected to glowing spikes that penetrated the sheets in patterns that reminded me of constellations. The whole mess was hard to look at, especially as the various hoops floated around, and sometimes through, one another.
“So that’s the web,” I said. “Anyone have any bright ideas on how it works?”
Rathokhetra woke inside my thoughts.
“I do,” he said. “All dungeon lords must master the web if they are to survive.”
“Spill it,” I thought.
The memory of the dungeon lord didn’t speak again, but the secrets of the web unfurled in my thoughts like gouts of smoke from a long-smoldering fire.
The Solamantic Web was a massive diagram of the known worlds scattered like gems across the many known planes of existence. It resembled a spiderweb, but only because that was how mortal minds most easily conceived of the multidimensional spaces the damned thing encompassed.
Points of light illuminated each intersection of the web’s glistening strands. Some of those glowing dots were so tiny they were barely visible as flecks of white. Others were much larger, the size of marbles, and glowed like Christmas lights in shades of red, blue, green, gold, and a myriad of other colors.
The size of the lights represented the amount of power that flowed into those worlds. The silver threads were the streams of ka that flowed into them from other worlds and planes to form rich pools of energy that a dungeon lord with the right skills could tap into and use to perform all sorts of miracles.
The colors that emanated from the lights told a story, too. The white lights, by far the most numerous, were contested by more than one dungeon lord. The power of those worlds was pulled this way and that by the struggles of these enemies, which made it impossible for the dungeon lords to harvest it efficiently.
Red lights were firmly held in the grip of a single dungeon lord. All the ka that flowed into them was absorbed by this master, who used it as he or she saw fit.
Golden lights were the rarest, but the most coveted. They were unclaimed worlds, and their ka was ripe for the taking.
“Clay!” Nephket shouted. “Wake up!”
Shit, it had happened again. Rathokhetra’s memories were filled with knowledge I needed, but they were also as deep and treacherous as a dry well. Once I fell into one, it cost me far too much time to clamber back out.
I caught Nephket’s hand as she swung a sharp slap toward my cheek. Apparently a second sharp slap because my opposite cheek already stung.
“I’m okay,” I said. “I just...”
I really didn’t want to explain about the long-dead dungeon lord living in my thoughts like an unwanted squatter. He’d been a real asshole to Delsinia, and she did not need to think I might turn into her ex. I also didn’t want the wahket to doubt whether I was the real deal.
“I was exploring the web,” I said. “I think I understand it now.”
“That’s good,” Kezakazek said. “Because I sure as hell don’t.”
The web was close enough for me to touch, but I held my finger slightly above its surface. Brushing against it wouldn’t activate it, but concentrated thought and contact would. Given that I wasn’t sure when Rathokhetra would try to reassert himself and take over my mind, it seemed like a safer plan to not put my finger on the button.
“This is Soketra,” I said. It was a small red dot, surrounded by other red dots. “The color means that there’s only one dungeon lord here, at least now.”
“All those other red dots around us are other dungeon lords?” Zillah asked. “We’re surrounded.”
She had a point there. Eight other points of light encircled this world, and five of them were red. Fortunately none of them were any larger than Soketra, so I didn’t have to worry about some juiced-up dungeon lord making a play on us. There was also a very real chance that they didn’t have a Solamantic Web to use for travel between worlds anyway.
Hell, before the drow poked their noses into Soketra, I hadn’t had a Solamantic Web or the knowledge to use one.
The neighboring white worlds were more troubling to me than the red ones. These were much larger than any of the red dots, which meant they had more power. It also meant there were multiple dungeon lords on each dot, all duking it out for the top slot. If a dungeon lord claimed one of those white worlds for his or her own and turned it red, they’d be in a prime position to strike out at weaker worlds around them.
Like Soketra.
It appeared my fighting days wouldn’t end with the drow.
“This is all cute,” Delsinia said, “but where is Kozerek?”
The malevolent gleam in her eye that had ignited when she’d tortured the mage was still there. Her features seemed sharper, more aggressive, as if they’d been honed by her renewed need for revenge.
“Here.” I pointed toward a white dot adjacent to Soketra on the Solamantic Web.
“It’s white, so they have multiple dungeon lords there?” Kezakazek asked.
“Yes,” I said. “But I’m less worried about the other dungeon lords than I am about the fact that the drow are using the web to move from one world to another. The Solamantic Web isn’t something to be trifled with. A normal wizard might spend his entire lifetime trying to learn its ins and outs and never get further than what I’ve just said here today. If the drow can use it, they must have another dungeon lord on their payroll.”
“You mean on a leash?” Nephket asked. “How many have they captured? We should destroy this thing before they try to put a collar around your neck.”
I shared my familiar’s concerns, but I wasn’t going to let her see that. My people needed to believe that I was fearless, that I had no doubt we would defeat these drow and decorate my throne room with their skulls. My strength was their strength, and they needed to be at their confident best to face the drow.
Because the dark truth was that I didn’t know how the drow had enslaved Delsinia, or how many other dungeon lords they’d noosed with a slave’s chains. It was possible that every one of those red dots was another dungeon lord Kozerek had conquered, and all the white dots were worlds they were trying to conquer. I felt like a kid who’d jumped into a pool only to discover that he didn’t know how to swim, and he’d plunged headfirst into the very deepest end.
“We can’t wreck the web from this side,” I said. “And even if we did, they might be able to use their dungeon lord to create a new one and come after us from a different direction. Our best bet is to travel to the other side, find their dungeon lord, and neutralize him, her, or it so Kozerek can’t use them to recreate the web.”
“We also have to kill whoever knows the trick of leashing dungeon lords,” Kezakazek said. “Otherwise, these assholes will find another poor bastard to use.”
“Kozerek,” Delsinia choked out the name around a knot of raw emotion. “He has to die. Open the web, let me hunt him down. When I’ve slaughtered the fool, I will come back and lead you to the web so it can be destroyed to safeguard your territory.”
That was the safest and most obvious plan, but I wasn’t sure Delsinia could make good on her promise. She had the skills to sneak up and gut Kozerek, but the drow had already trapped her once. They might know some weakness that would let them do it again.
“I want him dead, too,” I said. “But I don’t think you can just march into enemy territory and hope for the best. If you pop out on the other side and face a hundred drow ready for battle, you’d be dead before you had a chance to put any of your special skills to use. And the rest of us would face the same fate a few
seconds later when they stormed through the portal. No, we have to be smarter than that.”
“Kill chute?” Zillah asked. “It worked well enough on the last group of drow that we fought.”
“That’s a good idea, but the traps won’t be able to stop a large force,” I said. “A few of the dark elves would be taken out by the traps, but it takes those devices a while to reset. The rest of the drow forces would disable the traps during the downtime, and then we’d be well and truly hosed.”
Even as I explained to my guardians why the kill chute wouldn’t do what we needed it to, a new plan coalesced around the less lethal traps in my arsenal.
I’d played enough tower defense games to know that dividing forces before you attacked often turned the tide of battle in your favor. If I split the drow forces, we might be able to devour the beast a bite at a time. It was risky, but maybe...
“Delsinia, what was the trick you used to ambush me when I first came to your dungeon?” I asked.
“The Room of Bones and Shadows,” she said.
“How many people will it hold?” I asked
“Eight, including me,” she said.
“And how long can they stay up there?” I asked.
“Forever,” she said. “If you have enough food and water.”
Well, that was certainly interesting. The pieces of a plan took shape in my head, but I didn’t have much time to assemble them. If Kozerek still planned to come through when the first portal opened, we had about an hour and a half to prepare.
“All right, here’s the plan,” I said. “No arguments, just listen. We don’t have much time, and I need everyone to play their part.”
It took me a few minutes to lay out what I intended, and all my guardians and the wahket were pissed when I’d finished. Nephket was the first to raise her hand, but I cut off her objection before she spat out its first syllable.
“I know you don’t like it,” I said. “It’s dangerous, I know. But we’re out of options here. This is what we’re doing.”
I wasn’t entirely sure if this was the best plan, but it was the best one I could come up with the time and tools at my disposal. If I’d let them debate the pros and cons, we’d be there for hours and still not make everyone happy. At the end of the day, we’d all be dead at the hands of the drow if we didn’t do something.
And that shit was not happening on my watch.
I’d lost another two ka to the cost of maintaining my dungeon across dimensions, which left me with twenty-five motes. I’d need at least twenty of those to execute my plan, which only left me five for maintenance. I’d burn through that in ten minutes, and we didn’t expect Kozerek and his army to show up for at least an hour.
“We have to pull back through the portal,” I said. “I’m burning ka for every minute I spend on this side, and I can’t afford it.”
With that, I retracted my dungeon’s passageway until we were all safely in Delsinia’s former territory. I spent a few minutes digging through the abilities that had unlocked for me at fifth level and frowned at what I found. The Tablet of Incarnation had the usual assortment of new spellcasting levels, Expertise bumps, and the quite nice Incarnation Extension that would increase the Incarnation ability’s duration to five minutes per ka spent. But it also held a group of abilities that didn’t seem to fit in with my role as a dungeon lord.
Exemplar of Peace encouraged hostile creatures to avoid my dungeon, which seemed totally at odds with my goals of luring in outsiders to take their ka. Exemplar of Growth increased the rate at which crops and livestock matured, which would have been neat if I had any farmers on the payroll. There were a few other Exemplar abilities, as well, but they all shared the same lack of utility for the fight at hand. I made a mental note to examine those more closely with Nephket later. Maybe there was some nuance here I was missing.
The Tablet of Guardians had a greatly expanded list of monsters I could call to my dungeon, but I didn’t have time to mess around with bringing new critters into the mix. The last thing I wanted to do was disrupt the wahket battle lines when I most needed them to rely on their combat training. But this tablet also had something called a Growth Chamber, which would allow me to create beasts to guard my dungeon. It was an interesting option, but it would take a week for those creatures to mature, and I wasn’t sure how obedient or combat-effective they would be. They’d also need to be fed and watered, which seemed like a job for a zookeeper, not a dungeon lord bent on conquering his enemies.
Strengthen Ore, Imbue Potion, and Inscribe Scroll were on the Tablet of Transformation. While I could see definite uses for creating potions of healing and scrolls of blasting the shit out of my enemies with lightning, I’d need an arcane laboratory and the proper supplies before I could put those abilities to use.
The Strengthen Ore ability intrigued me, but the ability to transform one type of metal ore into another wasn’t high on my list of things to purchase. It could be useful, but not until I’d also purchased an Ore Extractor chamber. The idea of going into the mining business seemed odd, but it also made a certain sense. If my dungeon became known as the go-to place to find rare metals, I’d attract a lot of potential ka donors.
That wasn’t going to help me with Kozerek, though, so I opened up the Tablet of Engineering to see if I’d unlocked exciting new traps to play with.
Abbattoir? Birthing Chamber? What in the actual fuck was I supposed to do with a room that let me create meat and another room that let creatures in my dungeon whelp more efficiently? I wasn’t even sure creatures in my dungeon would want to have babies. Maybe Pinchy would like a whole brood of scorpions to watch over.
I’d have to ask her.
The last ability on the Tablet of Engineering was so weird and out of place I had to read it twice to make sure I understood what the heck it said.
<<<>>>
Settlement
Cost: 20 motes of ka
Limit: One per core
Spawn: N/A
Combinable: N/A
Type: Cultivation
Description: When this ability is unlocked, the dungeon lord may claim a single settlement within one mile of his primary dungeon.
This ability is required for advancement to sixth level.
<<<>>>
While there were some intriguing possibilities in having a settlement on the surface, it did nothing for my current situation. I wasn’t even sure how I’d ever get back the ka investment.
Disgruntled as I was about the Monster Rancher Starter Pack of new abilities that had popped up at fifth level, I did find two new options on the Tablet of Engineering that would be perfect for the plan I had in mind.
<<<>>>
CONCEALED TRIGGERS
Cost: 20 motes of ka
Limit: No
Spawn: Yes
Combinable: Yes
Type: Mastery
Description: When this ability is unlocked, all traps in your dungeon become twice as difficult to detect.
<<<>>>
Short, sweet, and very, very useful. Unfortunately, it was also expensive, and what I had in mind wouldn’t leave me with many free motes to play around with. When I had more ka, I’d certainly look into investing in this ability, because it was almost too good to be true.
But the next ability was the one that seemed like a real game changer for me and my dungeon.
<<<>>>
SLIDING WALLS
Cost: One Easy Encounter
Limit: No
Spawn: Yes
Combinable: Yes
Type: Mechanical
Description: This trap causes one dungeon wall, no larger than 10 feet by 10 feet, to slide out of a hidden slot in another wall or swivel ninety degrees on one corner.
<<<>>>
While this trap wouldn’t inflict any damage on the drow or his minions, it would cause all kinds of havoc. The possibilities for this nonlethal trap were endless and sparked very nasty ideas in my head.
I went to work on my pl
an immediately and spent over an hour setting it up, moving the wahket into position, and then preparing intricate architectural features I hoped would confuse and disorient the drow.
When I’d finished my work, I reckoned we still had thirty minutes before Kozerek showed up. There was still work to do on the other side of the portal, but I had to wait before I tackled that. If I went through too soon, I’d run out of ka to maintain my dungeon and the whole plan would fall apart. But if I went too late, Kozerek would arrive before we were ready for him. It was a delicate balancing act, and if I erred on either side we were all dead.
With fifteen minutes before Kozerek’s arrival, I took a deep breath and pushed my dungeon through the portal.
“Delsinia,” I said. “Do your thing while I finish my preparations. We don’t have long before the asshole army shows up.”
“On it.” She swung her bone dagger over her head.
It only took me ten minutes to arrange my dungeon to receive guests and drop the last of my traps in place. That cost me two ka in maintenance fees, which left me with three motes in the tank. If Kozerek was on time, I’d still have two motes left, and I’d need both of them.
Five minutes passed without any sign of the drow.
“Where’s the dick?” Zillah asked. “Shouldn’t he be here by now?”
“He should be.” I prayed I wouldn’t run out of ka because the drow wasn’t punctual. “Any second...”
Chapter 14: Invaded
THE SOLAMANTIC WEB opened with a sound like a cat being scalded. The long, ear-piercing screech went on and on, and every moment we were forced to listen to it made me want to throw up more than the last.
Fortunately, it appeared that dungeon lords couldn’t actually puke, which was an unexpected, but welcome, bonus.
The first drow through the web knew something was wrong, but the changes I’d made left them too confused to react to what they saw. I’d transformed their cozy little staging area into a fifteen-foot-wide by twenty-five-foot-long passageway that took a hard ninety-degree turn opposite the entrance from the web. I’d also lit up the room until it was as bright as the sun, which the subterranean elves did not seem to like even a little.