Realizing that ripping Roark’s head off barehanded was no longer an option now that they were nearly the same size, Ugoraz took his hands away from his blood-slicked face and produced a long black whip with five tails—the wicked elder sister of the cat-o’-nine-tails—each of its lashes studded with rusty, crescent-shaped blades.
Before Ugoraz could put enough distance between the two of them to use the evil-looking whip, Roark lunged inside his guard and spun, slashing the dagger and rapier across the Overseer’s chest and gut, leaving deep gashes in their wake. From the corner of his eye, he saw Ugoraz’s Health drop below the halfway mark. Roark let the momentum carry his Strength-transformed body full circle, then plunged the dagger into the Overseer’s neck.
The red bar over Ugoraz’s head dropped to critical and began flashing.
The Brute roared, and a pulsing bloody red aura surrounded him, thrumming like a heartbeat. Roark danced left, ducking below a wild swipe, then lunged in with his rapier, prepared to end the disgusting creature for good. Ugoraz was ready, however, and deflected the blow with the whip handle, then planted a foot in Roark’s gut, sending him stumbling backward over the uneven floor. The enraged Overseer lashed out with the whip. Crescent-shaped blades clashed together with strangely musical discord as they followed the sinuous path of the tails, then hissed through the air at Roark’s face.
Roark dropped into a roll, throwing himself back toward Ugoraz. While the Brute had that whip, Roark couldn’t afford to get outside arm’s reach. He came up at Ugoraz’s feet and scored a deep slice across the back of the Brute’s heel, following this with a sottomano up Ugoraz’s back. The Overseer cried out, dropping to one knee as his mutilated tendon gave way.
A disproportionately small bit of red disappeared from the Health bar over Ugoraz’s head. Ugoraz was tough, no doubt, but far from invincible. That damned bloody aura surrounding Ugoraz was somehow blunting Roark’s attacks, and he had only five seconds to go before his Champion Strength ran out.
Desperate, Roark grabbed the dagger from Ugoraz’s throat and pulled it free, sending a spray of Troll blood arcing across the room. Ugoraz spun around and swung the whip at him. The crescent blades sang out their metallic melody, but Roark refused to waste his opening shielding himself. Sometimes a little pain was worth the reward. Stepping forward to lend the weight of his body to the thrust, Roark plunged the cruel dagger into Ugoraz’s eye while simultaneously running the rapier through the Brute’s wide chest, skewering him like a roast pig.
The whip wrapped its length around Roark’s Champion-Strength-enlarged shoulders and embedded their cruel edges in the thick slabs of muscle covering his chest, cutting deeply into his regained Health. But as he watched, Ugoraz’s red bar emptied. The Brute’s remaining eye widened and his mouth dropped open in baffled shock, expelling one last stench-filled puff of breath in Roark’s face. Then the Brute crumpled to the floor. Dead.
The bubbling sensation returned, only this time Roark’s limbs were reverting. Shrinking. He winced as the crescent blades lost purchase in his flesh without the slabs of muscle to cling to. They dropped, clattering on the flagstones.
Slowly, the tunnel vision Roark had developed during the battle widened to include the rest of the throne room. The place could’ve been peopled by statues rather than living, breathing Trolls. None of Ugoraz’s Thursr cronies so much as breathed. They all stood staring down at their defeated leader, thick jaws hanging open. Even Kaz looked as if he couldn’t believe Roark had survived.
Not just survived, but won.
Finally, Macaroni wriggled free and scurried across the floor, his sticky feet slapping on the stones. He chirped excitedly at Roark, waggling his paddle tail as he looked from Roark to the fallen Overseer then back again. Roark gave in and scratched the beast’s bulbous head.
Macaroni’s chirping seemed to bring the rest of the Thursrs to their senses. They all dropped to one knee and bowed their misshapen heads to Roark, Kaz included.
Before Roark could protest the gesture, another page filled with text appeared before his face. Without the panic of the impending fight interfering, he realized that it was a page from his mystic grimoire, the top marked with a ribbon reading Quests.
╠═╦╬╧╪
Congratulations! You have completed the quest Getting a Head in Life!
You may ascend to the throne as Floor Overseer for The Cruel Citadel Level 1!
To accept position as Floor Overseer, take a seat on the throne.
To reject position as Floor Overseer, leave the throne room without taking a seat on the throne.
Warning: If you leave the room without accepting the position as Floor Overseer, you will not be able to return and accept later.
╠═╦╬╧╪
Roark closed out of the grimoire. The wet slap of Macaroni’s feet on the floor followed him to the front of the throne room. None of the Thursrs from Ugoraz’s rule made a move to challenge him, though Roark knew this would be the perfect time to stage a secondary coup, while he was weakened from the fight and before he’d taken control of the throne and the benefits that came with it. But they let him climb the dais uncontested.
Wary of some sort of trap, Roark pulled one of the Modest Health Potions from his Inventory and gulped it down before climbing the dais. The liquid inside was an unnatural shade of magenta, and it tasted like a mulberry wine someone had loaded down with sugar. Nearly made the teeth ache, that. He regarded the bottle, and a brief flash of text appeared: Brought to you by Mountain Dew Code Red! Thanks for drinking! He dismissed the wording with a confused shake of his head. The warmth and vitality surging through his veins were well worth the awful flavor. As the cuts and bruises covering his body healed, Roark chased that potion with one more, topping off his Health vial.
Now with enough Health to risk searching out a trap, Roark ran his hand over the obsidian seat and back between the twisted and spiked arms of the throne. No mechanisms or slots for hidden spring blades. If there were pinholes for stickdeath needles, he didn’t see them.
Around the room, the Thursrs were still kneeling, though now they were watching him. Kaz’s face shined, and the black plumage in his antlered headdress trembled with his excitement. The rest seemed to be reserving judgment—waiting, perhaps, to see what sort of leader Roark would be.
Without further ceremony, Roark took a seat on the twisted throne. Immediately, a new grimoire appeared before his eyes, the pages marked with ribbons labeled Troop Management and Floor Design.
[Congratulations! You have ascended to Floor Overseer on The Cruel Citadel Level 1!
From the Overseer’s Throne, you may command and deploy mobs throughout the first level, create and alter the layout of the floor, and purchase resources or upgrades for the rooms.]
Fascinated, Roark flipped through the pages. Under Troop Management, he found a roster of all the Infernal creatures on the first floor, along with their statuses, and a simple map showing their current location. A few of the Changelings and Reaver Bats who’d been killed when the salamander-slaying heroes had returned for their griefing were marked as deceased/respawning. Beside that was a small countdown clock, displaying the time until they reappeared. The rest of the troops, however, seemed to be active, their dots roaming the map in prescribed routes.
Roark also found that he could alter the creatures’ scripts. The Level 1 Stone Salamanders all seemed to be set to camouflage themselves and try to run away if a hero came within fifteen feet. Roark chose the salamander at the top of the list and erased the command to run, then wrote in a new one and accepted the changes. Now if a hero came within fifteen feet, the little beast would camouflage itself and attack the hero. It’d be interesting to see how that Stone Salamander’s next encounter played out. He made a mental note to come back when he had redesigned the floor layout and change the scripts for all of the creatures on the first floor to something a bit more pragmatic.
Somewhere in the back of his mind, Roark registered cold, v
elvety flesh burrowing between his back and the throne. Macaroni’s head pushed out under his right arm, and the creature’s paddlelike tail curled around his left side. It wasn’t fearsome, but it did make the unforgiving stone seat a bit more bearable.
Roark turned to the page marked Floor Design.
At the top was a detailed map of the first floor’s hallways and rooms, each door, chest, trap, and bit of furniture carefully depicted. After a little tinkering, Roark found he could move and change the corridors, placing new turns or removing them so that the hall ran straight. The first floor had 100 points to invest in different rooms and furnishings, each of which had a different point cost. By moving the points around and investing them in different places, he could add traps, hides, weapon racks, and utility rooms like kitchens, forges, Infernal shrines, or arcane workshops. As long as he stayed within the allotted points, he could redesign the level to suit any purpose he wanted.
Grinning like mad, Roark studied the points distribution. This was exactly what he’d needed. With a forge and arcane workshop down here, he could set to work building weapons and armor for the Trolls that would rival any the heroes brought in. Kaz’s enormous, excitable heart would fail when he found out Roark could put in a kitchen.
But first, there was business to take care of. Reluctantly, he closed the Overseer’s grimoire and stood. The Thursrs all lowered their heads again, a few scraping their noses against the floor.
“All right, all of you get up,” Roark said. He jerked his head at Kaz to lead the crowd. Kaz scrambled to his feet, the plumage on his antlered headdress dancing. A moment later, the rest of the throne-room Trolls followed suit. “If you want to stay and fight, show me your loyalty by defeating our common enemy, the heroes. If you can’t stomach me as a leader, you’re welcome to leave the citadel or migrate to a lower floor. Either way, I don’t want your contrived shows of obeisance. I’m not going to execute you for thumbing your nose at me—at times, I might even deserve it—but be advised, if you come after me, I will make an example of you.”
Roark let the open challenge hang in the air for a few moments before continuing.
“Those of you who are going, go.” He gestured toward the shadowy archway behind the throne that led down to the second floor. “The rest of you, we’ve got raids to prepare for.”
Conditions laid out, Roark waited to see how many of the Thursrs from Ugoraz’s regime would leave.
None did.
Roark nodded and clapped his hands together. “Excellent. Let’s get to work, then.”
TWENTY-TWO:
Down, Down, Down
Roark the Griefer’s first order of business as Floor Overseer was to loot his predecessor. Ugoraz had quite a bit of gold on him—210 pieces—but almost nothing else excepting the five-tailed Lash of the Waning Blood Moon.
╠═╦╬╧╪
Lash of the Waning Blood Moon
Damage: 29 - 36
Range: 20 ft
Durability: 63 of 66
Level Requirement: 4
Dexterity Requirement: 16
Constitution Requirement: 20
Whip Class Weapon – Enchanted
When wielder’s Health drops below 25%, wielder goes into a blood rage, dealing 2x damage to opponents while taking 50% damage.
╠═╦╬╧╪
That explained the pulsing red aura Ugoraz had erupted in. Roark stored the whip in his Inventory, then attempted to split the gold with Kaz and the Thursrs.
They were all staring at him. Meaty jaws hung open showing rows of serrated teeth, and onyx eyes stared, horrified.
Roark sighed.
“Even you, Kaz?” He’d thought because Ugoraz was a Troll, not a hero, and Roark had rightfully defeated him in single combat, the headdress-wearing Thursr wouldn’t have a problem with looting the body. Well, less of a problem, anyway. “All right, why don’t you want a share of Ugoraz’s loot?”
“Because it belongs to the Dungeon Lord,” a dusky voice said.
The five Thursrs turned as one, eyeing the corner of the throne room, just to the right of the dais. Roark followed their line of sight to a level-six female Reaver with midnight blue skin leaning casually against the arched stone doorway there, one foot propped up on the wall. Her face was hidden in the shadows of a dark hood, white ringlets spilling out from inside. The hood itself was attached to a scrap of leather bodice armor that concealed surprisingly little and would only protect her from opponents with exceptionally bad aim. Terribly impractical, or so it seemed to him.
Roark frowned. “I defeated Ugoraz in single combat.”
“And that gives you the right to the Floor Overseer position,” the Reaver replied coolly, kicking off from her perch and taking a few aimless steps toward the dais. “But the weapons, gold, and anything else the previous Overseer had on him at the time of death belong to Dungeon Lord Azibek the Cruel. If Azibek wants you to have a piece of the action after that”—she shrugged and spread her hands—“well, he’ll decide how it’s distributed.”
Just one more way to make sure the whole citadel, from the first floor to the last, relied on its tyrant.
“I suppose you’re here to collect?” Roark guessed.
Both her forearms were wrapped from knuckle to elbow with leather strips. She fiddled with them as she answered.
“You could say that.” From the tone of her voice there was a smile somewhere inside that hood. “The Dungeon Lord has summoned you to the final level. You can bring an honor guard if you feel like it, and since you’ll be down there already, you can make yourself useful and drop off his gold and weapons.”
There was less than thirty minutes left before PwnrBwner_007 and his party respawned, and Roark was eager to get to work redesigning the floor layout, not to mention get a forge up and running, but he got the feeling this wasn’t an invitation he could decline.
“If I refuse?” he asked.
That time, Roark caught a definite glint of tooth inside the hood. The Reaver took a step backward into the shadows beside the door and crouched. Then she was gone, leaving nothing but a puff of black smoke behind.
A moment later, a leather-wrapped hand landed on his shoulder and a warm bodice pressed against his back. Black smoke curled around his legs as the cold metal of a blade caressed his throat.
“I don’t know,” the Reaver said, the smugness loud in his ear. “The smart Trolls tend not to say no to me. I think it’s my winning personality. That or the poison.”
She held her palm out in front of his face, revealing a row of needles like tiny thorns sticking out of the leather wrappings. In the corner of his eye, his filigreed Health vial flashed green.
A notice appeared just late enough to be completely useless.
[You have been Poisoned!
Initial Damage: -20% Health
Damage Over Time: -2 HP / sec for 2 minutes
Drink an Antidote to stop the effects.]
Roark dismissed the alert and opened his Inventory, going for the Antidote he’d harvested off the griefed heroes.
Naturally, it was gone.
“Guess again, hot stuff.” The Reaver stepped around him and headed for the arched doorway, waving a glowing green Antidote potion over her shoulder. “You can have it back if you’re good.”
Outconned twice in less than an hour. Roark scowled. Being a Changeling must be killing his brain cells.
Roark jerked his head at Kaz. “Let’s go.”
The poisoned Changeling and Thursr ducked through the doorway and onto a shadowy flight of stairs lit at intervals by dancing torchlight. The soft slap of Macaroni’s sticky feet followed them, and when Roark looked up he could see the telltale distortion slithering along the arched ceiling. On the landing below, the Reaver was waiting for them.
By the time they caught up to her, Roark’s heart was thudding madly against his ribs, and his skin burned even though it was slick with cold sweat.
“I’m not going to survive this staircase, let alon
e the entire citadel,” he said, wiping a sheen of perspiration from his brow. “We’re doing as you said. Give me the Antidote and we’ll keep following.”
She snorted. “I saw your stash of Modest Healing Potions, Griefer. You’ll manage just fine.”
Grudgingly, Roark pulled one out and downed it. The sugary magenta swill took the edge off the poison, but his skin still burned like a hot iron. Most of his Health flowed back into the filigreed vial, but it remained green rather than red, and continued to drain in slow, steady increments.
They continued down the winding stairs and came out in a sprawling torture chamber that put Marek Konig Ustar’s nastiest prisons to shame. Cages lined the walls and hung from the ceiling, many covered in still-wet gore, others containing grinning skeletons, many of them Troll. Every device of torment imaginable—and a few unfathomable—were scattered around the room, interspersed with blood-soaked tables. At the far end, a cart full of dismembered and decaying body parts sat next to a raging furnace.
Roark couldn’t hear Macaroni anymore, but he thought it likely the Stone Salamander was keeping watch from above. He hoped.
Thursrs milled around the room, and Reavers skulked in and out of the shadows like vengeful wraiths. Much like the Changelings in the antechamber above, the Trolls of the second floor seemed to spend all their time growling at one another or fighting over sloshing flagons of ale that smelled as if it had already gone skunky.
As Roark watched, a Reaver—this one with a glowing wand—sent an icy spike through the kidney of a level-six Thursr. Two more Reavers and another Thursr pounced on the injured Troll, taking it down like a pack of rabid wolves.
As if he’d forgotten his newly evolved size and strength, Kaz skittered closer to Roark. Roark kept his rapier in hand, wishing he had more than just the Spectral Hands spell available for use. He’d seen similar scenes taking place across Traisbin in squalid stretches of city where the populace had been strangled by the noose of poverty. Crushed under the bootheel of the Tyrant King until all humanity was bled out of them, they turned on the only people they could: each other.
Rogue Dungeon Page 15