“I think the safest way to go in is in groups,” he suggested. “My gang of six first, then Korgam’s. We establish a beachhead, then get the rest of you. We will have the Volunteers hold the rear, just in case somebody or something follows us in here. I want to hear any concerns, suggestions, or ideas, so now is the time to speak. No second-guessing when we’re neck-deep in Hellmouth minions.”
Korgam spoke up. “Perhaps it would be best if my group brought up the rear. Leaving our weaker members by themselves puts them at risk if the Necromancer launchers another attack.”
“Good point. Any objections? Okay. My group will go in. When we give the word, Marko and the new Adventurers will follow. Calvo will bring in the rest of the Volunteers, and finally Korgam’s Party. We may leapfrog the two high-level teams as we advance. I don’t know how many people we can pack in a chamber without getting in each other’s way. Depends on the room, I guess, so we’ll play it by ear.”
Hawke cast all his buffs, used Gift of the Martyr on his companions, and waited for Gosto and Egg to buff everyone in the first group. When everyone was ready, he opened the door with a trickle of Mana. The stone surface disappeared revealing a tunnel going down; a blast of air, hot enough to make people recoil, burst through the opening, making everyone take a step. The heat was intense enough to sting; Hawke’s armor felt like an oven.
“At least it’s a dry heat,” Hawke said. Nobody laughed.
You were there before. The actual Tartarus.
“Well, it’s not going to get any cooler down there. Let’s get going.”
* * *
The first stretch of tunnel was too narrow for more than one person to enter at a time. Hawke led the way, using Enlightenment but spotting no traps as the tunnel descended onto a landing a good twenty feet below the entrance. An empty doorway led to a large chamber built of worked stone. Its walls were lined on both sides by statues on pedestals, four on each side, depicting men in chain mail armor and full helmets decorated with twisted horns. Kite-shaped shields were held in front of them and swords were belted at their waists. They reminded Hawke of pictures of a Crusader’s tomb that one of his gaming buddies had posted on social media.
“Anyone wants to bet that when we go in, those statues are going to come to life and attack us?” he asked the group as they gathered at the landing.
“Classic dungeon trick,” Nadia said. “No bet.”
“That seems like a waste of magical power,” Gosto said. “No, I will bet one gold that the statues remain inanimate, but something else, something even more terrible, will happen.”
“Any more takers? Guess not,” Hawke muttered before casting Animate Shadow and sending the Darkness Elemental into the room.
Everybody prepared for action as the Hawke-shaped construct floated towards the middle of the chamber. He looked through the critter’s eyes and activated his Mana Sight. The stone floor, walls and ceiling in the room appeared to be inert. So did the statues. Their Mana was deeply bound into their structure, indicating no magical activity. There was a lot more magical energy in the room than anywhere he’d been to so far, however, other than around the Mana Nodes. There was Mana infused into everything in the Labyrinth, even the air they were breathing. That was true everywhere in the Realms, but here it was more condensed, or maybe denser.
The only exception was a spot of floor that was actually devoid of Mana, something he had never observed since gaining his special senses. The diamond-shaped section was dull grey to his Mana Sight. It had no energy whatsoever. He switched to his regular sight and saw that the surface of the four-sided tile was covered in intricate patterns. That must be the Seal mentioned by one of the Labyrinth’s Quests. To activate it, he would have to add Mana to it. There were no signs of traps his spell-enhanced senses could detect on the Seal. That might change once he turned it on, though.
Enlightenment found no traps elsewhere in the room. The Animated Shadow explored the entire chamber, looked around and behind each pedestal, and even climbed onto a statue and looked around. Nothing. A doorway the same size as the entrance stood at the other end. It was too easy. He couldn’t see anything suspicious, but something that plainly harmless had to be a trap.
“Looks like we’re clear,” he said, stepping into the rectangular space.
The rest of the group followed him, with Alba staying in Stealth mode and keeping some distance from everyone else. Hawke headed for the other end – and froze when a small creature appeared on the threshold. It looked like a typical demon, with cloven hooves instead of feet, dark red skin, twisted black horns on the sides of its head, and an evil grin that revealed that all its teeth were pointed. All of that would have been more impressive except for the fact that the demon stood three feet and zero inches tall. Its stats were also rather unimpressive.
Imp (Lesser Infernal)
Level 10 Tormentor
Health 100 Mana 300 Endurance 150
“Who dares enter the Ostium Tartarus?” it cried out in a squeaky voice that almost made Hawke burst into laughter.
“Peaceful travelers seeking only to pass through; we’re on our way to somewhere else,” he told the demon.
He didn’t think diplomacy would work, but it might not hurt to try. His Party Interface showed him the rest of the group was spreading out behind him, with Rabbit moving to stand by his side. Nobody else thought they were going to talk their way out of this. The Imp didn’t seem like much of a threat, but appearances could be deceiving.
“Travelers, you say? Intruders, I say!”
The Imp exploded as soon as it finished speaking. There was no physical shrapnel or shockwave, however. Instead, the creature became nothing but a rapidly-expanding pulse of Mana that reached out and washed over the eight statues in the room. Eight statues that began to move and attack.
“I owe you a gold!” Gosto shouted as everyone in the Party fought for their lives.
Thirty-Four
Animated Statue (Demonic Construct)
Level 10 Minion (Elite)
Health 800 Mana 100 Endurance n/a
Hawke blocked a sword swing by crossing his blades and threw a Hammer of Light at the statue as he tried to keep track of everyone. The ambush had left the group scattered throughout the room, without a place to form a line between the ranged specialists and the monsters. Gosto, Nadia and Tava were all being attacked by a statue apiece. Three had gone after Hawke and two were tussling with Rabbit.
Alba appeared behind the construct trying to chop Tava to pieces; her double backstabs took off a third of its Health, but the creature moved with shocking speed and delivered a brutal backswing. Alba parried with one of her daggers but the blow was too strong to block completely; the sword still hit her, and sent her spinning away. That was pure inertia rather than an injury, however. Hawke was the one who took the ninety-eight points of damage. His Gift of the Martyr would keep the squishies safe at first. Problem was, if they all kept taking damage, he would go down, and then they all would be helpless.
Hawke did a Touch of Healing on himself while he traded blows with the trio of opponents hounding him. He hurt them quite a bit – Saturnyx’s triple damage against demons worked against the constructs as well – but he ended the flurry of swordplay with his Bulwark of Light cut down to near zero. Those statues hit hard! Luckily, his friends weren’t wasting their time. Gosto ensnared the one going after him with Nature’s Grip and rolled away from the immobilized construct to begin casting Nature’s Guardian. And Tava used a new ability, Retreat, to perform a magical somersault that took her back to the landing, from which she used her own immobilize attack, Spider Shaft, to glue her attacker to the floor in a web of sticky and nearly unbreakable strands.
“Everybody back to the landing!” Hawke shouted as he did
his best to keep the three bastards in front of him too busy to go after his friends. “Gosto! Use your pet to plug the doorway! Tava, get Rabbit over there!”
The thing with shouting instructions was that he could do that and fight, but he couldn’t do it, fight, and cast spells. The statues slashed him several times during his impromptu speech, knocking down his damage-absorbing Bulwark and slicing off over a hundred Health after that. Nadia got stabbed in the back while she ran to the entrance, which martyred Hawke for another hundred and fifty damage. The only good news was that everyone listened to him. A few seconds later, the group was formed up by the entrance, with only the pair that had chased Rabbit there in melee range of the Dire Bear and Gosto’s mud-and-wood bear pet.
Hawke dropped a dual-cast Fireball on the trio he was fighting, followed up with a similarly-enhanced Burning Light that really did a number on them, since Light magic damage doubled against demonic critters, and capped it all by Twilight Stepping to the landing’s entrance to backstab one of the pair attacking his friends, going for the one with the lowest Health and taking it out with double criticals doing ungodly amounts of damage. Before the three he’d left behind or the pair who were still immobilized could free themselves, the party wiped out the last statue by the entrance.
After that, it was a fight, but not much of a challenge. The statues were tough, with high resistance to all kinds of damage and magic, but they had no ranged attacks. With Hawke, Rabbit and the Nature Guardian holding the door, the rest of the team could concentrate on healing or damage dealing. One by one, the statues crumbled, leaving behind chunks of vaguely humanoid rubble.
For slaying your foes, you have earned: 1,280 Experience (160 diverted towards Leadership; 160 diverted towards Node Mastery).
Congratulations! Your Leadership has increased to Level Five!
(Leadership Abilities cannot be purchased until completing or abandoning a Lair)
Current XP/Next Level: 8,707/16,000. Leadership XP: 5,873/6,000
Current Node Mastery XP/Next Level: 1,309/3,000
Hawke noticed the improvement to his XP gratefully, although he still was a long way from leveling up. The Leadership boost would be nicer if he didn’t have to wait until they were out of the Labyrinth, but what could you do? Nothing except to use everyone’s favorite mantra: ‘The Arbiters are harsh but fair.’ Maybe one day he would be able to express his feelings about the Arbiters in a constructive way.
I’m just frustrated, Hawke told his sword while he picked up his loot.
Almost a hundred gold, and some Healing, Endurance and Mana potions to go with the thirty gold and half dozen potions he’d gotten from the werewolf-apes they had fought the night before. The potions the Elites dropped were higher-quality than the Minor and Lesser versions he’d gotten previously, restoring 10% of one’s Health, Mana or Endurance Pools immediately and another 20% over thirty seconds. He also found a Nomad’s Saber with some nice stat and skill bonuses; he would hand it over to Marko or one of the new Adventurers. Everybody seemed happy with the contents of their magic doggie bags. Surviving tough fights paid off, until you didn’t.
The other three groups in the small army had gotten bupkis from that encounter. Next time, he would organize things to bring in two groups at a time. Everybody would get less experience, but it would be spread out better and result in a more powerful force. He needed to mini-max as much as he could, for everyone’s benefit.
He glanced at Tava as she examined a bundle of arrows, and realized she had leveled up. More than, that, she had picked a new class and gotten a lot tougher.
Tava Kintes (Human)
Level 10 Ranger, Slayer (Undead, Demons)
Health 392 Mana 146 Endurance 364
“Congrats,” he told her.
While Eternals could choose a total of five Classes or Specialties, regular Adventurers had to make do with three. Tava’s next choice would not happen until she reached level thirty-five, so the two she had picked would define most of her career. Her second Class made it clear that she had no intention of slowing down anytime soon.
Slayers were a fighting class that got the Health bennies of Warriors and also gained huge bonuses against their Chosen Foes; they got one Foe immediately and could pick another one every five levels. Tava had done some mini-maxing of her own, selecting the two types of monsters they were going to be facing in the immediate future: Undead and Demon-kind. Their only limitation Slayers had was that they didn’t get the Heavy Armor proficiency, keeping them from anything heavier than chain mail. Slayers weren’t meant to be tanks. In Tava’s case, that wasn’t much of a hardship; most of her Ranger attacks depended on Dexterity, which heavy armor affected negatively. Staying in mail would suit her fine, given her role as a damage-dealer.
The new class had a subtle effect on her appearance, too. Her gaze seemed more focused, more calculating, and something in her body language told him she was measuring out everybody she saw as a potential enemy. Or even prey. But underneath was the same Tava who loved overcoming challenges and winning just as much as he did. She and Hawke wanted the same things, and only their enemies had anything to fear from her.
“What do you say, my intended? There are many who would not accept a Slayer in their household, for their first instinct is to kill. They are deemed to be dangerous and fearsome.”
He grinned at her. “You’re talking to a Ninja Paladin, babe. Danger is my middle name.”
“You are so lucky you are in a whole new universe, one where you can try that sort of line on people, and call them ‘babe’,” Nadia said as she joined them. “Grats, Tava. And remind me to tell you the story of a girl called Buffy. She was known as a Slayer as well.”
“Oh, that should be fun,” Hawke said.
“I bet you’d like that. By the way, I’m like two hundred XP away from level nine. Should be hitting ten soon. Any suggestions for a Class to take?”
Hawke thought about that. Nadia had never liked being a front-line fighter in the MMORPGs they had played. The answer seemed easy to him. “Healer. Hybrid healer instead of a Priest, so you get more Health. You already have all the Mana you need.”
“Hmm. Makes sense. Paladin, maybe? My problem is, I don’t feel comfortable following some so-called ‘god.’ I wasn’t a very pious Catholic, but I still believe in God. I’m not going to worship these guys, whatever they are. Do you know what I mean?”
Hawke shrugged. “I was – in most ways I still am – a Paladin of Lumina Gloriana, yeah, but I don’t exactly worship her. It’s more like I have a contract with a powerful entity. And I swore to follow the tenets of the Triune Goddesses, which mostly revolve around protecting innocents.”
“Okay, that doesn’t sound as bad.”
“Besides, I’m positive someone else created her and the other gods, and it wasn’t ‘the’ God, either.”
“The Makers,” Nadia said.
Hawke nodded. “But the Makers didn’t create the universe, either. Whoever runs this place didn’t create reality. They took reality and they changed it. Modded it.”
“Are you saying the Makers are reality hackers?”
“Yeah, sort of. Character classes, levels, hit point meters, those are all ‘mods’ on reality. People still breathe oxygen, bleed, die, sweat, have bowel movements. But now they become stronger as they face hardships, and not just mentally but also physically. Someone created a modded instance of the universe where they can pump energy into people and give them, well, super-powers I guess, as they go up in levels.”
“So this Great Designer is like someone making skins for Doom XXIII or whatever.”
“Makers, not Maker
. This was a team effort.”
“They, whatever. They didn’t create the universe, just hacked into a piece of it.”
Tava was watching the conversation with an increasingly troubled expression in her face. “Many of your words mean nothing to me. But the ones that do are… disturbing. Are you saying that besides the gods, the Arbiters who rule over them, and the Makers who rule the Realms, there is something else? Something greater?”
“The Makers didn’t create the universe. Who did?” Nadia asked. “Some think it just happened, that all of reality appeared out of nowhere in a Big Bang. I believe that someone, a Creator, made everything. Including the Makers.”
“I would like to know more about this Creator,” the Ranger-Slayer said.
Nadia looked stricken. “Oh, dear. I don’t know if I’m the right person to bring religion into a polytheistic world.”
“Guess you can tell her what you believe, and see what she thinks,” Hawke said. He wasn’t sure how he felt about it, either. Religion had been a source of comfort to her mother, but he wasn’t very comfortable with the topic. “Meanwhile, the Makers may not be the Creators, but they are a lot more powerful than we are, that’s for sure.”
“They were human, once. Have to be. This is the product of a gamer’s mind. If they somehow managed to get that kind of power, why not us?”
“Maybe if we reach the endgame, we’ll get the chance to do it,” Hawke said, not sure that he believed his own words.
Lord of the Dead: A LitRPG Saga (The Eternal Journey Book 2) Page 20