The Fourth Realm (The Ten Realms Book 4)

by Michael Chatfield

  Erik continued talking as if he hadn’t heard Rugrat.

  “The second line of bunkers have cannons and observers. Have them in lines—create arcs of fire. Anything that comes from the ground, we make their life hell. Then we have heavy repeaters in batteries: one in the watchtowers in the inner city and the outer city. Bury explosives and formation traps in the ground, activate on our command.

  “Have two lines for people to pull back to. When they do, the older sections of the line are mined and turned into a trap for the enemy to enter.

  “As they cross the first line, then they can be fired on by the second line. We don’t need much of a slope, but enough for each of the bunker lines to fire over the previous. And we only need the firing slit above the ground at ankle height.”

  “Make them a pain in the ass to hit, but we can see in any direction still. Nasty.” Rugrat approved.

  “Then resupply lines of tunnels throughout, making it easy to move ammunition up and wounded back. Though if someone attacks here, hopefully then they’ll be dealing with the full might of the associations and not just us.”

  Chapter: Dungeon Dance

  “I hate this place!” Yuli yelled as they ran through their latest dungeon. Behind them, a creature that looked to have the eyes of a snake, the body of a furry mammoth, and the face of a saber tooth tiger was chasing them.

  “Shut up and keep running!” Niemm yelled as he threw another grenade at the wall. It landed next to a pillar, breaking the pillar in it’s explosion and dropping the roof on the creature chasing them.

  A group of beasts charged out of a side room, only to have Tian Cui slide underneath them, turn her body and jump at their backs by launching off the wall.

  Her blades flashed as she beheaded one and stabbed another. The mole-looking creatures cried out as a red gas seeped from Tian Cui’s body, creating a curse that rushed out to meet the others.

  The mammoth shaped beast crawled out of the debris piled on top of him. His left eye was sealed shut and it’s body was covered in wounds.

  The mole creatures turned to attack Tian, only to see she had jumped free and was now following the party still running away from all of the creatures.

  Niemm used a spell scroll, slowing them all, the rest of the special team getting away easily

  “Lucinda?” Niemm called out.

  “Up here to the right!” Lucinda responded.

  They entered a large cave-like, the ground was uneven and slick with water puddles with stalatites hanging from the ceiling, water dropping from them to drop onto the rocks and water below.

  There was a glow from above that settled on three chests on pedastals and a tiled floor, behind them there was a door.

  “Hopefully that’s the exit,” Tian Cui ventured.

  The stones between the three chests moved as if they were part of a Tetris game until a blue glow was revealed. Niemm and the others climbed up the steps, jumping up them as fast as they could.

  The mammoth sized beast appeared from the doorway they had just exited, looking at the party running to the dungeon core. Its eyes widened, as if realizing something as it stomped toward the stairs.

  Niemm reached out and touched the dungeon core. “Control!” he yelled as screens appeared in front of him.

  The beast dropped to the ground and stopped moving. Now it was bowing to them, under their control.

  “Shit!” Yuli exclaimed as she slumped down and sat on a chest.

  “That’s a mimic,” Niemm said casually.

  She jumped up, but the chest didn’t change. “Sarge!” she complained.

  Niemm waved his hand and the chest opened to reveal a mouth and its arms slurped out of the side and moved. The arms looked like planks of wood.

  It waved at the group as Niemm pulled out a stack of blueprints and used the build function of the dungeon. It took him only a few seconds to add the blueprint and set the dungeon to work. Then he pulled out a Ten Realms contract and raised it above his head.

  A golden glow fell on the contract and then on Niemm. A screen of accepting the changes appeared in front of him.

  “One more dungeon sorted out,” Niemm announced.

  “We’ve only been able to capture five dungeons in the last two weeks,” Lucinda complained.

  “Well, we were tailed by the associations pretty heavily in the beginning.” Niemm consoled as he added another set of instructions that would create a secondary dungeon, hidden from the first. It would hide the dungeon core and create a place for the people of Alva to resupply and restock at in case of emergency.

  “I hope the others are doing better,” Deni remarked.

  ***

  “Covering!” Imani yelled.

  “Fuck this!” Gong Jin shouted.

  “Moving!” Simms exclaimed.

  Han Wu covered the ground behind Gong Jin with explosives.

  “Cultists, am I right?” Han Wu asked as another group of the charging cultists were cut down by the grenades.

  “Covering!” Simms and Gong Jin yelled. They dropped to the ground and started shooting at the cultists, firing their heavy repeaters and cutting down the pursuing cultists.

  “Moving!” Han Wu and Imani yelled, pulling back as they reloaded their weapons.

  “Covering!” The low noise from Han Wu’s grenade launcher sounded out again as Imani’s rifle sounded as if it were automatic. One or two cultists dropped with every shot.

  “I hate this job!” Simms yelled.

  “The center is just behind them!” Gong Jin bellowed. “Simms, get that spell scroll ready!”

  Simms and Gong Jin dropped to the ground, Gong Jin while shooting.

  “Covering!”

  “Moving!” Imani and Han Wu started to run again. Their Stamina and Strength was impressive, allowing them to cross a large distance. But the large hall they were running down only had one entry from behind them and hall in front was coming to an end.

  The cultists were firing their bows furiously, but the special team members had only been left with a few bruises and scrapes.

  The cultists spells were dangerous; although they’d get an A for effort, they were terrible at aiming. They were also not terribly good at organizing themselves when they were getting blown up and killed. Only their fanaticism kept them fighting and wanting to keep the location of their cult a secret.

  “Weirdos!” Gong Jin fired his repeater from the ground with his right hand, giving them the middle finger with his left hand. His strength reached the point where the repeater didn’t strain him at all.

  “The Cult of Vaskala will claim the lives of the defilers!” a cultist yelled out.

  “Covering!” Han Wu and Imani yelled Han Wu rebutted with fiery grenade launcher destruction

  .

  Han Wu’s covering grenades went off. In the enclosed space the wall of noise Gong Jin couldn’t hear anything as he worked his jaw. Simms yelled out a chant, while he held a spell scroll up and ran incredibly fast toward Imani and Han Wu.

  “Moving?!” Gong Jin yelled but he couldn’t hear anything that Simms was saying.

  Gong Jin ran back only a little bit before he dropped to the ground again.

  Three spell formations appeared on the ground. The Mana power in the room sucked into them as three summoned large boars appeared from the ground.

  “Go!” Simms yelled, the boars charged forwards, spearing the cultists and forging a path through them. The charge rolled up the cultists. There was nowhere for them to run in the corridor.

  The cultists forward momentum quickly turned into running away.

  “Dungeon core?” Han Wu asked.

  “WHAT?!” Gong Jin squawked, only barely hearing a noise.

  “Dungeon core?” Han Wu asked, louder now.

  “The fuck was in that grenade?! I can’t hear!”

  “Oh.” Han Wu responded as he laughed dryly. Gong Jin might not be able to hear, but seeing the guilty look on Han Wu’s face, his eyelid started to twitch and a vein popp
ed out on his forehead.

  ***

  Roska and the rest of her group appeared in a cave. A glowing light came from her hand as storage devices fell to the ground.

  “Ugh, can we go somewhere warmer?” Yang Zan asked as the wind cut to the skin. He wrapped his cloak around him tighter.

  “You didn’t get frozen by that white yeti! I think my frostbite has frostbite,” Davos muttered.

  Tully shivered. “I’m not trying to stop cold attribute beasts again. All of their attacks are so damn cold. I’ll need months of warmth to recover.”

  “We can go to the Linem Islands?” Roska half suggested, half asked as she looked sheepish.

  “Hell to the yes.” Xi tossed Roska the storage item he had picked up with the dungeon’s core and its items.

  ***

  Hiao Xen stood on his balcony, looking over Yeda city. It was the city that he had been promoted to just a few months ago.

  “Are you still thinking about his offer?” Nuo Xen, his wife asked.

  Hiao Xen only let out a heavy sigh.

  “Take it,” Nuo said suddenly.

  “I thought that you said you wouldn’t interfere with my work?” He looked at her.

  “I meant when you weren’t being an idiot. Look, is Erik a simple person?”

  “No, but then what happens if I return to the Blue Lotus after the five years? I’m not even a hundred years old. I have plenty of more time I can give them and I haven’t heard anything from the leaders of the Blue Lotus.”

  “What does that tell you?”

  “That this is a test or a trap,” he said in a sour voice.

  “How?”

  “They would tell me to take it if they wanted me to. They don’t need to wait on my decision. I know that there is a reward from the Blue Lotus, but they haven’t talked about it. So, either I stay in my position and accept their gift for assisting, or I take the position offered by Erik.”

  “Is there anything that you have to agree to that will break your relationship with the Blue Lotus completely?”

  “No, but—”

  “But you will be in command of a city,” Nuo Xen reassured him.

  “A city that only has builders, a few undead and guards who are contractually obligated to be there,” Hiao Xen said.

  Nuo clicked her tongue and shook her head. “Then why do you look so excited and I know that you’re hiding more from me?”

  Hiao Xen didn’t answer a smile hanging off of his lips.

  “So my mysterious husband when do we leave?”

  “Who said that we were leaving? If we go then it could put our position in jeopardy,” Hiao Xen.

  “Erik is not a simple man, and you would be running a capital. Looking at you things are not so simple as they look on the surface. With time, it will grow stronger. You owe him, for our son. Do him this favor and you are right in both obligations—you have hundreds of more years afterwards to devote to the Blue Lotus. Who knows you might help one another and reach new hieghts. It is not often that one can do this.” Hiao Xen sighed as his wife continued in a lower voice. “I have heard that Elder Lu is keeping updated on the situation there. Seems that others are expecting big things from Vuzgal.”

  “When did I get so lucky to have a wife like you?”

  “You must’ve been a great humble man in your past life,” She teased.

  “You knew as soon as he asked what your answer would be,” she whispered into his ear.

  He looked at her, his mouth pressed together into a white line. “How come you know me this well?”

  “I’m your wife you silly man.” She kissed his cheek.

  “All right, I’ll announce my decision tomorrow.”

  “Good, so where will we be living?”

  “In the castle,” Hiao Xen smiled.

  “A Capital Castle?”

  “There is a whole district behind it with smaller palaces and buildings, in there,” Hiao Xen said.

  “A whole palace to redecorate,” Nuo said a hungry look in her eyes.

  I hope that relocation and renovation costs are included!

  ***

  “Don’t you think people will be suspicious?” Storbon asked as he followed Erik through a hallway inside Bala Dungeon. They passed through a doorway and went up some stairs.

  The defend a point part of Bala Dungeon was laid out like a cross.

  At the main intersection where the four arms met, there was a large second floor. There was also a tree in the middle of the room. It grew from the ambient Mana. There were trap doors around the tree, where chests would rise out of the ground.

  “There are other defense dungeons in the realms.Here they have to defend a tree from the beasts that spawn in the dungeon for as long as possible, then they need to flee out one of the exits. There are plenty of exits available. If they clear five waves, then one of the chests rises up, filled with loot from the Ten Realms. As time goes on, then more beasts are spawned each wave. The Ten Realms will spawn beasts based off the Mana in the area, so with all the bloodshed around Vuzgal, then combined with the Earth and Water Mana in this valley it will feel perfectly normal for an addition to the dungeon to have appeared over the centuries,” Erik said.

  “Aren’t you afraid people will abuse it?” Storbon asked.

  “Oh, they will, for sure. But then our Bala Dungeon will grow much faster than others, with so much fighting and ambient attribute Mana around. It will be slow to start, but purifying that much mana, the dungeon core will grow, purifying more mana and using the excess to build more floors workshops, with some of that energy being stored up in a mana storing formation.”

  Erik checked on the construction progress of Bala Dungeon. It was still underway. It would take another couple of days to complete. The layout was incredibly simple to speed up making the new parts of the dungeon.

  “The Original Bala Dungeon, then the crafter dungeon and then our own hidden dungeon underneath,” Storbon said.

  “Then the two extra dungeons.”

  “The Endless dungeon and the other regular dungeon?”

  “Yeah,” Erik said.

  “Lots of building,” Storbon paused.

  “Cat got your tongue?”

  “When would a cat cut out my tongue?” Storbon had a perplexed look on his face.

  “Its- nevermind, what do you want to ask?”

  “Well, I heard that we’re going to be expanding the military.”

  “Yes,” Erik said, working on the interface.

  “Are we going to increase the saize of the special teams?”

  “That is my aim eventually. Though Glosil will be in charge of that. Rugrat and I aren’t good commanders for large groups, never trained for it, we could eventually, but it doesn’t make sense. Glosil is the commander of Alva’s military, about time we made it official instead of being micromanaging idiots,” Erik smirked and looked at Storbon.

  “Seems like there is something new each week,” Storbon said.

  “Keeps you on your toes,” Erik chuckled.

  “How are you?” Erik asked as he was working with the interface.

  “Good, sir,” Storbon said, becoming straighter.

  “Cut the shit,” Erik said, not looking away from his work.

  Storbon bent, his body deflated like a balloon as the dark circles around his eyes appeared. “When I talked to people back in Alva, my old friends. They listened to what happened up here, they nodded like they got it, but they didn’t. They didn’t understand just what we did, how we lived, how we fought. How we put everything on the line—everything. It was like they thought we were playing some game. It was honorable; it was great—but they don’t know what it really was. What it means to just be a soldier!” Storbon shook his head in frustration.

  Erik waved the screen away and turned to Storbon. “It is something that very few people understand and fewer can relate to. When you become a soldier, when you see war, everything changes. You aren’t the person from before. It’s something tha
t only other people who went through it can talk about.” Erik put his hand on Storbon’s shoulder.

  Storbon looked up at him.

  Erik had repaired his mis-developed body. He had given him a shot at a life larger than being a cripple. He’d taught him how to fight, led him at the defense of Alva Village and the war in the Fourth Realm.

  To say Erik didn’t feel responsible for Storbon was an understatement.

  Erik knew that he was one of the few people Storbon could just unload his baggage to. It was hard, but as they would walk through hell for Erik, he would do the same for them and lead the way through the flames.

  Chapter: Master and Student

  Tan Xue looked at the pilfered Mana cannon. There were a few different types: one that was complete, another that had been broken down into parts, and a few other broken versions, broken by attacks or from overloading itself with power.

  She had been wrapped up in smithing for the last couple of months, as if she had rediscovered smithing again. She held classes in the room, working and explaining what she was working on and why she was using different techniques.

  The smiths were all of a peak Journeyman level, seeing her working and being able to ask her questions was enough to inspire them and send them off to work on their own projects.

  Julilah waved her hands at the cannons, “Welcome to the leftovers.”

  “These are powerful pieces of magical engineering—formations and smithing working together to create such a powerful tool,” Tan Xue marveled.

  “Powerful but crude. They’re just large machines to focus and fire out a Mana Blast. The mortars take less material and can fire faster, their damage isn’t as high but with modifications to the tube in materials, ammunition and formation,” Julilah scoffed, looking down on the siege equipment.

  “The mortars might not be hard to make, but the ammunition takes time to build and ship. Their biggest issue wasn’t the weapon system, but getting ammunition to the mortar teams. This cannon uses Mana from a person or from Mana stones. Although its rate of fire is low, its power isn’t too bad,” Tan Xue said.