by Hugo Huesca
He glanced back at the ogre that had attacked him. He was probably a sentinel, left to guard the Portal’s entrance. The Dungeon Lord smiled. “I don’t know if you can understand me, but I’m giving you one last chance to surrend—”
Then the Portal behind him flared to life with several bursts of sulfur and red light, and many things happened at once, the end result of which were several dead ogres.
A dozen magical purple crows flapped over the ogres’ heads, pecking at them as Alder’s magical clones ran around looking confused. The horned spiders surrounded Ed while Kes sprang next to his side and thrust the tip of her sword into the wounded ogre’s eye without saying a word. Klek and his riders charged through the ogres’ midst while they were distracted by the illusions and the crows, and webbed their weapons away from their reach right as Kaga and his Monster Hunters rushed into the fray and slashed at necks and tendons with their scimitars, cackling like madmen as they went through their bloody work.
It was a massacre.
Only one lonely ogre reacted fast enough to do anything at all, and she ran away through a shadowy exit with a broken door laying at one side. A burst of thick mist snaked through the air after her. Both were out of view when the ogres’ screaming began—and then ended.
Ed and his minions stared at each other through ragged breaths. Ed realized everyone there was as surprised as he was. The battle hadn’t even lasted half a minute. He had lacked the time to activate his improved reflexes or think about casting a spell. Hell, to think of it, if it weren’t for Kes’ training, the ogre would’ve clonked him on the head and probably permanently wounded him before anyone had time to help. It was a sobering idea, and a great motivation to not slack off during the next sparring session.
Kes shuffled next to him, her sword still at the ready. “Told you I’d be right behind you,” she said.
Ed nodded. “You stole my kill, though.”
“Bah, I’m sure there’s a wraith somewhere for you to attempt to solo.”
Behind him, Kes’ new recruits shuffled forward, their spears shaking in their hands. They looked incredibly out of place in the middle of the carnage. One of them poked at Ed’s dead ogre with her spear, seemingly disappointed.
After them came Lavy and Alder. “What were those things?” Alder asked. “I didn’t even had time to study their character sheets.”
“Ogres,” Ed said. It was strange to know something about Ivalis that the Bard didn’t. “A few Dungeon Lords used them in Ivalis Online. At higher levels, they can cast spells and wear armor. These had weapons fashioned out of bone and rotten wood, though. They don’t strike me as minions of anyone.”
“So much for ‘We’ll be perfectly safe,’” Lavy muttered. She smoothed a non-existent crease in her dress. “At least you had me backing everyone up. Where’s Jarlen, by the way?”
The vampire returned through the exit where the ogre and the mist had left. Her burial dress was slick with greasy blood and bits of meat, as was half her face. She walked happily through the dead ogres and their ravaged camp site. A few of the Monster Hunters reached for their weapons when she passed them.
“Anyone called for me, my dears?” Jarlen sang. Her belly was bloated like a balloon, and her cheeks had a cozy pink color to them. She belched wetly, and one of Kes’ recruits heaved as if trying not to puke.
Ed barely passed an Endurance test to not follow suit. Whoever said that vampires were sexy should have a long chat with Jarlen, he thought.
“Lavy’s right,” Kes said, strolling angrily at the vampire. “You told us the entrance would be protected.” She jabbed the stump of her index finger at Jarlen. “Did you lead us into a trap, vampire?”
“How in Murmur’s name could I have? I’m a minion!” Jarlen snapped, then she visibly withheld herself. “Beg your pardon, Marshal Kessih, this was my mistake. I thought the mercenaries hired by Dungeon Lord Jiraz would honor their contracts until their time ran out. I was obviously wrong about their loyalty.”
“Obviously,” Kes said, but her animosity had run out. She gestured at the rest of Ed’s entourage. “Everyone, take your positions! We don’t know if there’s any more of those minotaur droppings waiting in ambush. If anyone’s hurt, say so now.”
No one was. The group hurried to heed her call, except for one batblin who was busy looting a dead ogre. His spider dragged him back to the other riders before Kes had time to single him out, however.
“What do you know about them?” Ed asked Jarlen, pointing at the corpses. For his kill, he’d gotten ten experience points, but the batblins and the kaftar had earned far more than that.
“As you said—ogres,” Jarlen prattled on, clearly happy to change the subject away from her mistake. “Natives of the Netherworld, technically a minor form of demon, like imps—or drones. The word is, they were created by Regent Volkhan, Lord of Strife, to use as disposable shock troops in the Age of Myths. Afterward, they sort of… spread around. They’re very hard to get rid of, like batblins. This lot here was a group of young ones, they must’ve been looking for refuge from a bigger threat and found the watchtower empty. They’re not very smart, but have a primitive understanding of combat. Killing is basically the only thing they’re good at.”
Ed felt a pang of guilt. Young ogres, hiding from the dangers of the Netherworld, and he’d slain them without a single chance at surrender. On the other hand, they did attack first. His empathy could only extend so far, and although it pained him to admit it, the fact that they were butt-ugly helped a lot to dehumanize them.
“I see. Anything else?” he asked.
“They’re brutes, but breed enough of them and you may get a natural spellcaster once in a while. Otherwise, fatten them up, get a dozen to gain enough experience points, have them buy defensive talents, and clad them in the heaviest armor you can find. Natural siege-breakers. Have them charge at any structure—or, well… anything smaller than a city, really—and they’ll tear it apart. Not particularly useful against Heroes, at least in small numbers. Then again, nothing is.”
“Noted,” Ed said. “How many do we need to start… ah… to grow them in the Haunt?”
Jarlen shrugged. “I lack expertise in that area, Lord Wraith. Two, perhaps?”
“I’m sure it doesn’t work that way,” Ed said, cringing inwardly. Inbreeding probably wouldn’t help the poor fucks’ looks.
“Your orders, Dungeon Lord?” Kes said, using her formal tone.
This is real, Ed thought. Since he was the one calling the shots, the lives of everyone here were his responsibility. Wetlands, when did that happen? “Like you said, we don’t know if there are more of them, so we secure the place,” he told Kes. “If there’s any remaining ogres, try to capture them instead. Don’t risk yourselves for it, though.”
Kes nodded, then began barking orders. “Monster Hunters, you’re on trap-finding duty, good luck. Use the spiderlings to stay in touch. Klek, you and Tulip use that echolocation trick of yours and pinpoint anything that moves that isn’t us. Spider Guard, you know what to do—nothing gets near to our Dungeon Lord. Casters—that includes you, Jarlen—we assist the Hunters in putting our new ogres to sleep. Haunted guards… you stay here and protect the Portal. If we come back running and screaming for our lives, you have my permission to do the same.” She clapped several times to hurry them. “All right, everyone got it? Then hop to it, earn those experience points!”
Seeing them spring to action and work in unison awoke in Ed something akin to pride. The idea that they hadn’t been fighting together as a unit for years was almost unbelievable. It made him proud to be part of the reason they were working together. Batblins, humans, kaftar, spiders, avian, even a vampire now. They formed the Haunt. His Haunt.
The idea made him so elated that he almost didn’t care that every single one of them would be stealing his kills.
In the end, there weren’t even that many kills to steal. Klek and Tulip reported only three remaining ogres, who were scattered throu
gh the watchtower’s upper level as sentinels. They’d heard the ruckus below and had been waiting in ambush behind a barreled door. There were other creatures around, critters and beast-like demons, but they’d run away the second Ed’s forces got near them.
That was disappointing. Monsters were supposed to go toward the adventurers, not away from them. But it made sense, as Ed had to remind himself. After all, he wasn’t an adventurer. He was a Dungeon Lord, and his group was technically a raiding party more than an adventuring group. Hell, they were a few dozen members away from being a warband. Of course anything with a Mind above five would run at the sight of them.
Ogre. Exp: 200. Brawn: 18, Agility: 10, Spirit: 8, Mind: 4, Charm: 4, Endurance: 16. Skills: Melee: Improved V, Survival: Basic V. Talents: Armored Hide, Magical Resistance (Basic).
Once the Monster Hunters cleared the first level of traps, Ed’s party set to dealing with the ambush. Since the upper level’s floor was built out of wood, Ed had them take position in a ring beneath the ogres above. The spiders drew a huge web net dangling from the ceiling, the kaftar prepared their sleeping darts, and the rest raised a couple of Lavy’s runes, just in case. That done, Ed summoned a group of drones and had them collapse a section of the ceiling.
Seconds after they began to chomp came a crack like thunder, and dust and broken wooden boards cascaded down into the webbing below, followed by a short stream of rotten furniture and three extremely surprised ogres.
The kaftar shot a volley of darts and, while the ogres struggled against the webbing, the horned spiders skittered around them and bit them over and over with their paralysis-inducing fangs. It took several tricky seconds before the ogres stopped struggling, but even the highest Endurance couldn’t resist a high-enough dosage.
“We’re way over-trained for this,” Kaga pointed out while a group of horned spiders dragged the webbed, unconscious ogres through the Portal a few minutes later. “I was hoping the Netherworld would be a better test of my skills.”
“Don’t you worry, kaftar,” Jarlen told him. “There’s plenty of challenges left for you.”
“Two males and one female,” Lavy said, scratching the side of her head. “It’s probably not enough to set up a self-sustaining ogre farm.”
Ed sent a couple drones along with the captured ogres, with instructions on how to adapt a couple free cells of the Haunt’s jail to contain the creatures until he got back. “We’ll get more later. These three will help our Monster Hunters learn how to train them.” He turned to Jarlen. “Do you know how Jiraz secured the minionship of non-intelligent creatures?”
“There’s three ways that I know of, Lord Wraith,” said Jarlen. “First is, you don’t bother. Grab a couple monsters like acid oozes and toss them into a chamber you want to defend for cheap, throw them some rusty iron a few times a month, then forget about it. Your drones will try to take care of their other necessities on their own if your skills are high enough. Second, you use a Mantle spell—Shackle Mind, I believe. It works only on beings with a natural Mind of three or below. Any affected creature won’t attack you or yours, but it’s an effect a clever adventurer can disrupt. Third way, you can build a special… enticement room. Man it with a couple succubi and they’ll happily convince almost anyone to become your minion.” She gave him a cruel grin. “Best thing is, you can find the room design, the succubi, and the spell right here in Xovia. Shall I make the arrangements?”
“I’m not interested in torture chambers,” Ed said, attempting to keep his voice level. “But thanks for the information.”
Jarlen made a small curtsy to mask the disappointment in her expression.
After that, Klek led the team to the areas where the watchtower’s marble walls had fractures and holes that monsters could use to get inside. They hurried to plug those with webbing and stone, which was only a temporary measure, but would hopefully dissuade anything nasty from taking a bite out of the Haunt guards while the others weren’t there.
Ed noted that his drones had a much harder time working on the white stone than back on Ivalis. The obsidian-like surface of the ground they couldn’t manipulate at all—their bites simply bounced off and did no damage. He filed this discovery in the back of his mind and readied himself to leave the watchtower.
Jiraz’ mercenaries hadn’t bothered to close the entrance after them. The chains lay like dead, rusted snakes in knots among the floor, and the six-foot-tall doors swung back and forth with the thick, Netherworldly wind. Past the entrance came the first view Ed had had of the Netherworld since his arrival in Ivalis.
The sky was crimson red and engulfed by angry, coal-black storm clouds, chains of thunder shining through. The air was heavy with dust and buffeted hard against Ed’s face, forcing him to raise a hand to protect his eyes. The ground was the same obsidian mixture of stone and crystal, and it extended in jagged breaks and crests as far as the eye could see. It was all sharp edges and smooth surfaces that made it easy to lose one’s footing in an instant. The landscape was black with little or no vegetation, but it sloped downward in several parts, as if Ed and the others were standing atop one of the fingers of the hand of some gargantuan titan from the Age of Myths. The slopes extended so far below that Ed couldn’t see what was at the end, other than more black clouds like the ones on the sky.
For all he knew, the Xovia landmass floated in the middle of more sky, completely disregarding the laws of physics. Or they were walking atop some kind of Netherworldly volcano. Both explanations left Ed with a bitter taste in his mouth, alongside the eerie sensation that the world itself was dangerous and could leash against him at any time.
“Is this some kind of desert?” Ed asked, searching for the plants and vegetations he was currently cultivating in his underground farms.
“Not at all,” Jarlen said happily. “On the contrary, Xovia is considered a very fertile land, highly sought after by other Regents.”
“Yeah, I can tell,” Alder said. “I’m almost drowning in all this greenery.” He swatted away a non-existent branch.
“I think that Master Alder is vastly underestimating the true size of the Netherworld,” Jarlen pointed out. “There’s a reason why Portal travel is a must, even with all its difficulties and dangers, instead of more mundane means. In any case, Jiraz did have some clout, even in the end, and our current location is fairly close to the Citadel—about a day’s journey, I’d say.” She pointed at a tiny section of the horizon where something like a gray button contrasted against the jagged obsidian world—although it may have been a trick of the light. “Unless the Regent chooses to give us a lift, that is.”
Klek gave the vampire a sideway glance. “But no one knows we’re here…”
Jarlen smiled mischievously and said nothing. It was at about that time Ed realized the ground was trembling.
If seen from far above, say, while mounted on a griffin, the beast that emerged from the fracture line closest to the watchtower may have looked like a dotted caterpillar with hundreds of yellow legs allowing it to climb through the obsidian slope and into the ground above, its antennae twitching with an air of perpetual curiosity.
Seeing it from the height of a normal human being, like Ed did, was another thing. It was as if someone had mistaken the proportions of a train with that of a house, elongated it a couple dozen times, and then mounted the thing onto an impossible series of yellow hydraulic legs. The antennae were easily the width of his arm and had spiked ends like a pair of morning-stars. The head was a wedge of armored chitin the color of rusty steel dotted with multicolored rings of greens and oranges, and the mouth was a—thank the gods—toothless cavern that opened slightly as if to taste the fresh air.
“Cinderpede!” Kaga exclaimed, his voice walking a fine line between amazement and hysterics. “And it’s coming right at us!”
Several hundred meters separated the giant creature from Ed’s party, but it was clear it was headed their way, and it was surprisingly fast for a being of that size. At once, half the g
roup drew runes or bows, and the other half took a couple discrete steps back toward the watchtower—and the Portal. Yumiya, Kaga’s second, drew her blowpipe, gazed at it, whined, and pocketed it again.
“Stand down, everyone,” Jarlen said. “Xovia’s Regent has sent a welcome fitting for a Dungeon Lord. The cinderpede is the best way to span the distance to the Citadel. You have my word it’s perfectly safe. As long as no one pokes it with a sharp stick, that is.”
Lavy turned to her, hands crackling with the purple energy of a barely contained spell. “You knew about this?”
“Why, could it be that the Head Researcher hasn’t ever seen a cinderpede?” the vampire asked without losing her grin.
Ed sighed and carefully used his gauntlet to brush away a pearl of sweat from his forehead. I should have seen this coming, he chided himself. The advance of the cinderpede would’ve been majestic if it hadn’t been headed straight their way. He noted idly that even the batblins had taken a cue from him and Kes and remained relatively calm, not counting the many shuffling quietly toward the watchtower—with Alder among them.
“It’s fine,” Ed told the Witch. “Jarlen only got away with it because she genuinely believes we’re not in any danger.”
“Danger? I’d never!” Jarlen exclaimed. “I’m only doing my job—helping the Haunt!”
Kes turned to Ed. “What’s going on?” she asked him, quietly.
Ed shook his head. Like in most things, it made sense in retrospective. The way Jarlen had become so helpful once she’d realized Ed wished to head to the Netherworld, the way she’d discreetly convinced them to go to Xovia instead of anywhere else…
He faced the vampire and told her, “How long have you been working for Korghiran?”
The vampire patted her distended belly and smiled beatifically with that dead face of hers. “Ah, a lady should never reveal her secrets.”