“Guess I was right.”
The summoning spell held 500 Mana, which suggested it would summon ten Hellhounds. That could be tricky. Hawke took the time to disarm the two spells that he knew, but left the other two alone. His best bet was to trigger them using a Tulpa and hope that the mystery teleport couldn’t reach him from all the way down the corridor. He walked back to the room, and found them all sitting around Nadia, who stood in the center of the circle as she told a story.
“…and as they looked into each other’s eyes, she stabbed him through the heart to seal the Hellmouth, condemning him to be trapped there for all eternity. She loved him, but she had to do it. To save the world.”
Tava was dabbing at her eyes, as were Alba and Taggan. Several of the others looked a bit misty-eyed as well.
“How long was I studying the door? Isn’t that like from Season Three of that show?”
“Season Two,” Nadia said. “And it’s been three hours. I, uh, sort of condensed it a little.”
Hawke checked his timer and, sure enough, he’d killed a little over three hours playing with magic. On the plus side, he had disarmed two of the traps. Now he had to deal with the rest.
“Well, why don’t you finish the story? After that, we may have to let a bunch of dogs out.”
Thirty-Seven
After the zero-level troops had been moved as far back as possible, everyone else buffed up and prepared for Hawke’s trap detonation. He and Gosto summoned two bearlike Nature’s Guardians to block the entrance, Gosto applied Bark Skin on everyone, and Egg and Crommen added their buffs to the mix. When everyone was ready, Hawke sent his animated shadow to detonate the mechanical traps. Spikes, a huge stone slab, and a flight of darts shredded the unfortunate Elemental. A second shadow didn’t trigger anything else, so Hawke had it stand by the Nature constructs and sent a Tulpa to trigger the two remaining magical traps.
He shaped the Mana puppet into a bipedal form and put enough power into it to give it average Strength and Dexterity and 20 Health. The creation looked like a translucent mannequin that walked forward, moving a little unsteadily. Hawke had to concentrate on it continually to get it to do anything; the process was a lot more involved than ordering his other summons around, which only required a basic command or two. On the other hand, the Tulpa had the same ‘signature’ as he did. It had fooled the magic triggers in the Vault of the Sidhe. Hopefully, it would do the same there.
The Tulpa reached the door, touched the handle – and disappeared with a loud ‘pop.’
Tulpa has moved beyond 100 feet. Tulpa has been dispelled.
The first trap had been a teleport after all. Before he could feel too pleased with himself, ten hellhounds materialized in the corridor and all heck broke loose.
Tartarus Kerberos (Elemental)
Level 10 Minion
Health 550 Mana 100 Endurance 550
The summoned monsters looked like three-headed dogs made of lava. They didn’t rush the Adventurers in the Seal-protected room, but instead formed three lines and began to spit Infernal Fireballs, three per dog. Thirty fiery missiles sailed forth in ballistic arcs and detonated on the front lines, each doing 10-100 points of Fire damage, which was bad enough, and 1-10 points of Infernal Damage, which ignored normal Elemental Resistances. Given that their area effect was just as large as the ordinary version, everyone who wasn’t in the back of the room got splashed multiple times by the clinging flames, which kept burning them for twenty percent of their normal damage for several seconds.
If Egg hadn’t deployed a Dome of Earth over the rear lines, which absorbed the first 900 points of damage in its area of effect, they would have taken some serious casualties. As it was, the two Nature Guardians and Hawke’s Shadowling all vanished the fiery explosion, Hawke’s Bulwark was depleted, and Rabbit and the Dwarves in the front all lost a third to half of their Health.
The Adventurers’ return volley was more effective, however.
Nadia’s Ice Shards and Hawke’s Burning Light did double damage against the critters, and in the cramped confines of the corridor, their area of effect included most of the hounds. Tava’s Imbued Killing Arrowstorm arrived a moment later, followed by Taggan’s Rain of Rocks and Gosto’s Thorn Thicket, along with multiple ranged attacks and spells from the rear lines. Three Hellhounds went down, leaving nothing behind but ashes and loot bags. Hawke didn’t wait for them to fire another volley; he took the fight to them with a Twilight Step-backstab that killed a fourth evil dog, followed by an Elemental Burst that softened up the rest of them. Korgam and Daggon arrived a moment later, hacking and slashing while the ranger damage-dealers targeted individual hell-pooches. A couple of Kerberuses lived long enough to spit out a second Infernal Fireball, but nobody was seriously hurt. A few seconds later, all the summoned monsters were dead.
For slaying your foes, you have earned: 240 Experience (30 diverted towards Leadership; 30 diverted towards Node Mastery).
Current XP/Next Level: 8,947/16,000. Leadership XP: 5,903/6,000
Current Node Mastery XP/Next Level: 1,426/3,000
Killing the tenth level non-elites didn’t produce the XP Hawke needed to make up for his recent deaths. On the other hand, even the first-level guys who had hung back and used ranged attacks and spells had earned enough XP to hit level two, with many being halfway to level three. That sounded impressive until you remembered that it only took 100 XP to make level two, and another 150 to hit three. Whatever meta-system awarded experience took into account dozens of different factors, everything from how big a role someone played in a fight to how risky their actions were.
Hawke collected twelve gold and a couple more potions and then walked up to the door. All the spells were gone, their Mana spent. He waited until people were ready and opened the door. A hot draft blew into the corridor, noticeably warmer than the already superheated air in his side of the door. Hawke found himself looking into a colossal chamber, with a ceiling that disappeared out of sight above him and dozens – maybe hundreds – of dark pillars arranged in rows that went on until they also vanished into the distant gloom. The pillars had a glowing red aura that provided illumination but the area was filled with some sort of haze that blurred things beyond a few dozen feet. The only wall he could see was the one the door was on, and he couldn’t see either end of it, either. The room had to be miles wide!
All right, Saturnyx. You are our native guide. Which way do we go from here?
Thirty-Eight
“This is another fine mess you’ve gotten us into, Hawke,” Nadia said as the group formed up by the entrance to the giant chamber.
“Hey, my sword told me she could get us out of this place in one piece.”
“Do you think we can still reach the inside of the mountain from here?”
Hawke shared Saturnyx’s thoughts with the rest of the group, as well as his intention to keep going. Egg remained skeptical, but Korgam found the argument convincing enough. Tava and the rest had no doubt that Hawke was right. Their trust in him was both comforting and something of a burden. If he screwed up, he would feel like he had betrayed them, and they might agree. But they had to get out of this hellhole and get on with their mission. He had hoped to spend no more than two or three days in the Sunset Range. They were already behind schedule.
“This is what I think we need to do,” he said. “I will lead a group to find a way out. Tava or Nadia should stay with the main gro
up. They are linked to me through my swords, and we can communicate at a distance of several miles. If anything happens, both groups will know right away.”
Korgam nodded. “That makes sense.”
“And I think it should be Tava.”
“You would leave me behind?” she said, looking as upset as he’d ever seen her.
“I don’t want to, but you are the highest-level Adventurer we’ve got besides me. If anything attacks this group, you could make the difference between losing or winning. You and Korgam’s group can hold the entrance. If you have to, you can pull back to the Seal room, or all the way out of the Labyrinth if it comes to that. I’ll take Marko and the rest of Team One with me. If things get too rough out there, we’ll come back.”
She thought about it before speaking, which put her ahead of most people Hawke knew. “You make good sense, as little as I like it. Father warned me that the right thing to do was seldom pleasant or easy to accept. And I will remain in contact with you through Saturnyx.”
“And if you need me, I’ll come back. Thanks to the Party Interface, getting lost will be difficult.”
“And if something goes wrong for you, I will come to you,” she told him.
Since he had promised to do the same thing, he couldn’t say no to her. “It’s a deal. I’m going to give this place two more days. If we aren’t in the mountain by then, we’ll go back to Orom.”
He hated the idea of leaving his fellow Eternals at the mercy of Necromancer Greg for even one more day, but he couldn’t ask the people following him – his people – to risk their lives without a clear chance at success. He had screwed up big time, thinking that finding a way into the Stronghold would be easy.
“I will take good care of him, sister,” Gosto said. “I know how much you loove the great big Paladin Templar or whichever title he has now.”
“Shut up, you,” she said absently. “Be careful, all of you.”
“You too. This place is no joke.”
* * *
Having no better way to choose, Hawke decided to follow the left wall and see where it went.
After the group had been gone for a couple hundred feet, nobody could see the entrance. Visibility was unnaturally short; things became blurry within a hundred feet. Like a desert haze; only the pillars remained visible beyond two hundred feet, and only as indistinct glowing columns. The heat was also like a desert. Everybody had to drink constantly. Hawke was glad the group had filled out all their water containers the day before, but at the rate they had to hydrate, they were going to run out in no more than a couple of days.
Sure, but they were all much higher level than any of us. Even maxed out at twenty, they still had access to more spells and abilities than we do.
The sword had a point. Hawke turned on his Mana Sight. Watching the energy flows everywhere in the huge chamber was distracting as hell, so he had to have Alba take his hand and guide him as if he was blind. With whorls of energy filling his field of vision, he would have walked into every pillar in his path otherwise. At first, the annoyance didn’t seem worth it. There was a lot of energy all around, but it all seemed to be bound in place, like in the statues in the first room. Inert, until the little Imp’s spell set them off.
It set them off, Hawke suddenly realized. The Mana it used in its spell wasn’t enough to turn a bunch of statues into minions. The spells were already there. Hidden somehow.
A couple years back, one of his gaming buddies had tried to get him into a wargame, a hardcore ‘grognard’ old-fashioned game with Cold War fleets fighting each other. He’d lasted a whole four hours of gameplay before quitting – he didn’t enjoy even World of Warships, let alone something as complicated as a real war game – but he remembered one bit about passive versus active sensors. Passive sensors worked like your eyes; you didn’t do anything more than observe. Active sensors used stuff like radar and sonar – they sent a signal which bounced back and gave you the target’s location.
“Let’s hold on for a minute,” he told the group. “Gosto, refresh your buffs, just in case. I’m going to try something.”
He waited until everyone had Bark Skin on before he started ‘radiating’ Mana in every direction. Let’s see what happened when he sent out a signal. He spent fifty Mana to start.
The effect was immediate. Right off the bat, he spotted two Seals within a hundred feet of the group, their diamond shapes showing up as dark squares on the ground. But there was plenty of more stuff out there. Letters and symbols appeared everywhere the energy wave touched the floor, wall, and pillars, like all the disgusting stuff that showed up when you shone a blacklight over it. He recognized the letters, although they didn’t use the Vulgate alphabet or the Fae script. The letters were Celestial, the alphabet of the gods, but he couldn’t understand the words they made.
Good, you can help me translate.
Hawke kept sending pulses of ten Mana at a time, and watching the symbols that appeared. Some were spells, hidden until he had scanned them with his new magic radar. They weren’t traps, so Enlightenment hadn’t uncovered them. He recognized some of their code, however. Teleports. There were a bunch of teleport… pads, he supposed, spaced about fifteen yards apart. There were also a bunch of Inscriptions besides the Seals. They definitely weren’t Order-oriented; instead of diamond shapes, the other Inscriptions were five-sided stars encased in circles and were covered with Infernal symbols. Looking at their patterns revealed more summoning codes; if those things went off, they would bring in lots of critters, and he was sure they would be a lot stronger than what the ordinary spells would call up.
“I found two Seals,” he told his companions. “If we activate them, we can move the rest of the group over here, I think.”
Just as he spoke, he picked up a Mana flare sixty feet away. One of the spells had gone off. Hawke belatedly remembered the problem with active sensors. The enemy could detect them and backtrack the signals to find you.
“Demons!” Marko shouted.
Hawke looked in the direction the energy surge had come from; sure enough, six Imps had teleported in, and this bunch was tougher than the one who’d welcomed them at the statue room:
Imp (Lesser Infernal)
Level 10 Tormentor (Elite)
Health 300 Mana 600 Endurance 250
“Nadia, put up your shield. Gosto, pet and heal. Alba, Marko, follow me in and start chopping heads.”
The Imps began to toss Infernal Fireballs at the group. Hawke grunted as his Health was reduced by ninety-six points via Gift of the Martyr, but managed to Twilight Step in the middle of the Imps, blinding them in the dark cloud that opened up around him and killing one with a backstab before cutting loose with Burning Light. He killed two more with the Saturnyx Twins as Nadia picked another off with Ice Dagger. Alba arrived a second later in via her own short-range teleport, and struck a target with each of her blades, destroying both. By the time Marko reached melee range, there were only two demons left. Hawke took the time to heal himself back to full while the High Guardsman dismembered one demon with his naginata and Alba cut the other’s throat.
For slaying your foes, you have earned: 480 Experience (60 diverted towards Leadership; 60 diverted towards Node Mastery).
Current XP/Next Level: 9,427/16,000. Leadership XP: 5,963/6,000
Current Node Mastery XP/Next Level: 1,699/3,000
You have found: 9 gold, 2 Healing Potions
“That was almost too easy,” Hawke said. A moment later, he felt another energy outburst. An Infernal Inscription had gone live.
And it had summoned something a lot bigger
than an Imp.
Thirty-Nine
Tartarus Centurion (Infernal)
Level 13 Lieutenant (Elite)
Health 2,600 Mana 2,600 Endurance 2,600
The monster was eight or nine feet tall and nearly as wide at the shoulders. It looked like an Imp on steroids, with the added feature of a pair of black bat wings on its back and an aura of flames surrounding it. A long trident, also wreathed in flames, was in one hand, and a fiery net on the other. It turned towards the group and roared loudly enough to echo throughout the huge chamber.
“We’re going to need a bigger boat,” Nadia muttered, trying hard to sound calm and not quite making it. “Or Gandalf the White.”
“There’s only one of them,” Hawke said. “I’ll tank with Gosto’s pet. Alba, try to sneak up on him after I have his full attention. The rest of you, shoot or heal and duck behind Nadia’s Elemental Shield; that thing’s got to have some ranged attack. Marko, use your crossbow for now.”
“I might as well spit on it,” the High Guardsman complained.
“When Alba attacks, you can join in,” Hawke told him before Twilight Stepping towards the demonic Centurion.
The big demon hadn’t been sitting idle, though. Just as Hawke teleported, it made a gesture and said a word in Infernal; the spell summoned half a dozen Hellhounds. Hawke arrived at a very crowded venue.
He still backstabbed the big guy for a satisfying four hundred damage, then bathed it and the non-Elite Hellhounds with Burning Light. He rolled off to one side, avoiding the burning net the Centurion threw at him, but all the doggos shot off their Fireballs at him, using their AOEs to avoid the fact they couldn’t see out of the cloud of Elemental Darkness. The fiery explosions ate up his Bulwark of Light, but with his Fire Resistance, they only shaved off a few dozen Health points. Better him than the rest of the group, who had used the distraction to launch their own attacks.
Lord of the Dead: A LitRPG Saga (The Eternal Journey Book 2) Page 22