by Cate Ryan
“But we can’t just stay here forever.”
Taysia eyed the 13 tunnels that surrounded the large cavern. One of them must lead back to Hellas, she just had to find the right one. She could already rule out one of them since they’d walked the full length of it.
“I’m going whether you’re all coming with me or not. I have to get out of here.”
One of the men approached. “I won’t come with you, but I can tell you. That one there. It’s not the way. I came through that one when I got here. Started at the end and here I am.”
“Good. That’s useful. Anyone else?”
A few other people pointed to passageways they’d come through. That left Taysia with just seven options to choose from. One of them had to be the right way.
“Any preferences Mack? You said you like puzzles.”
He thought for a moment staring at each in turn. Pacing the tavern. “This one.” He eventually stopped at a rather wide opening. Next to it lay the decaying corpses of 10 creatures.
Nolan piped up then, “There’s been lots come out of that one. Lots we’ve had to kill.”
“Good,” Taysia replied quickly. “That means there might not be much left in it to kill us.”
Mack agreed.
Okay. They headed off.
The smell didn’t improve in the tunnel. And there were sounds. She heard them almost immediately. It would be impossible to sneak past too. The tunnel offered nowhere to hide. She could try her illusions to trick them but that wouldn’t work for all of them. As they made their way down the tunnel it twisted and turned, sloping ever deeper into the darkness. The walls crumbled if they got too close. The floor burned her feet through her shoes. A debuff message flashed repeatedly.
[Current Environment – Hostile
Some environments in Pantheon can cause debuffs to your character while you are in them.
Current Debuffs: -2 Intelligence
-2 Constitution
-2% Health (cannot regenerate until you leave the environment)]
Just fantastic.
They trudged on.
The first thing they met was truly enormous. For a moment she thought it was a dragon. It came upon them so suddenly burrowing up through the cavern floor. It very nearly swallowed them whole.
Mack surged forward immediately, pulling the little axe Isaac had given him from his waist. Next to his huge gray body it looked tiny. Taysia made a note to get Mack a better one as soon as they got out.
She had other problems to deal with first. The huge worm was a disgusting gray color, it wiggled back and forth as Mack tried to hit it with the axe. It was quick though. The first three attacks missed. The fourth finally hit. Taysia realized suddenly that she should be helping too. She readied her newest attack a bolt of fire like Racquel’s and threw it at the creature it dropped the health bar only a sliver.
[8 damage to Flobberwask (Flame)]
She fell back to the bolt of energy, must be resistant to fire. It was a high level but that should’ve done more damage.
She threw the bolt. That was okay, it cost less mana anyway.
[10 damage to Flobberwask (Bolt)]
It hit the creature square in the midsection. The flesh there singed black. She did it again. The health bar dropped a little more.
[20 damage to Flobberwask (Bolt – Critical Hit)]
That was more like it. The bar dropped significantly,
The creature suddenly slid back under the ground. She grinned. They’d done it.
It was gone.
Then a rumbling began under her feet. She leapt out of the way just as it broke through the tunnel floor.
[-90 HP (Flobberwask Tunnel)]
Taysia groaned, her whole body felt like it had been shocked. It felt like fire, electricity and force all rolled into one attack. She could barely stand. Her head swam. The only thought on her mind was block. She pulled up the shimmering shield just as its maw would have reached her face. It bounced off. Taking a deep breath she jumped backwards readying another bold of energy. She threw it. The hit landed. Not a critical. She sighed.
Where was Mack?
She saw the glint of his axe hit the other side of the floobberwask. Okay, he was around the other side. That was fine.
She threw 3 more bolts of energy
[10 damage to Flobberwask (Bolt)]
[9 damage to Flobberwask (Bolt)]
[20 damage to Flobberwask (Bolt – Critical Hit)]
Woo. She checked her mana only 10 left. Enough for 2 more bolts. She threw them in quick succession.
[8 damage to Flobberwask (Bolt)]
[9 damage to Flobberwask (Bolt)]
Then waited. Surely it wouldn’t take long to regenerate. She should’ve taken the sword that Isaac offered her. Or paid more attention to his suggestions about hand to hand combat. Even a bow would be great right now.
Thanks to her improved gear she glanced down to see her mana had jumped up to 10 again. Two more bolts of lightning. The flobberwask was down to just 10% life.
[10 damage to Flobberwask (Bolt)]
[8 damage to Flobberwask (Bolt)]
A few more hits would do it.
With a great thwack of his axe, Mack scored a critical hit that dropped it several percent.
“Way to go Mack,” she called out, spurred on towards the end of the fight.
Back up to 5 mana. She threw another bolt of energy.
[9 damage to Flobberwask (Bolt)]
The creature writhed. It wasn’t enough to kill it even with Mack’s constant attacks on it.
The messages flashing past could barely keep up.
She threw another bolt.
And another.
[20 damage to Flobberwask (Bolt – Critical Hit)]
[9 damage to Flobberwask (Bolt)]
Finally the thing shuddered. Its body slid back down the hole it had burrowed out of. Leaving a hole where its body lay in the dirt.
[Flobberwask has been defeated. 50 XP awarded]
[135 XP until next level]
[Congratulations – You have reached Level 10
135 XP until next level]
“Good job Mack.”
She high fived the Minotaur who didn’t bother to sheath his axe.
“We should keep moving in case there’s more of them. Or the noise attracted something worse.”
“Look at you all grown up.” She tried to ruffle the gray fur on Mack’s head but found she was too short to reach it anymore.
Taysia waited for her mana to regenerate before focusing on creating an illusion that looked vaguely like the end of a tunnel which she conjured in front of them.
Continuing down the tunnel they came across everything from rats to juvenile flooberwasks but after the battle with the adult everything seemed quite easy, even the XP she got from the juveniles didn’t mean much anymore, a sure sign that the creatures were below her level.
[Flobberwask (juvenile) has been defeated. 20 XP awarded]
[115 XP until next level]
[Rat (x5) has been defeated. 10 XP awarded]
[105 XP until next level]
[Giant Spider (x2) has been defeated. 10 XP awarded]
[95 XP until next level]
[Giant Spider Venom has been added to your inventory]
Taysia pulled up her inventory as they walked.
[Giant Spider Venom – Potion
Value 350 gold
Rarity Rare
Properties Increase Mana Regeneration by 200% for 1 minute
Description
This venom can be used to give you a powerful boost to your mana production. But watch out once the effect ends, you’ll be in a world of hurt.]
Finally, after a long slope down they came to a fork in the road. Again, she left it to Mack.
“Left,” he affirmed.
She didn’t ask why just let him lead the way deeper into the maze of tunnels.
She could have kissed his horns when the tunnel finally opened into a large tavern again.
This time the place didn’t smell too bad at all. It had even been decorated a little. That was the first thing that gave Taysia an idea they had made it to where they needed to be.
The second was the thin guy sitting at a table playing cards with a skeleton.
Hades was not at all what Taysia had expected. She’d grown up with the image of a blue man with fiery blue hair. Not a pretty average looking human male who had nothing blue about him. Not even his clothes. She was bluer than him.
“Hello?”
“You’ll have to wait dear. I’m in the middle of a game. And poor Alfred doesn’t have much in him. Sorry.”
An apology? She looked to Mack. He didn’t have an answer.
Odd. She’d expected Hades to be a little more menacing.
They settled into chairs at the other end of the table and waited.
Taysia didn’t know what game they were playing. It certainly wasn’t anything she was familiar with. And it took far longer than any card game she’d ever heard of.
They’d been sitting there 10 minutes when a huge three-headed dog bounded in. She lifted her hand to send a bolt of energy for it and Mack leapt his feet axe out. Hades laughed.
“Cerberus. Sit. You’re scaring our guests.” The three heads lolled all focused on Hades but they obeyed. Dropped to hind legs and waited.
“Much better.”
Hades turned back to his card game.
“Yes Alfred, that’s the trick. I think you might have this one in the bag.”
They watched a little longer. The dog licked at one of its back paws waiting for more instructions.
It must have been 10 feet tall far bigger than any dog Taysia had ever heard of.
Finally, the game ended.
“Ah, well. Good game Alfred. Better luck next time.” Taysia hadn’t caught what the winning conditions were, but it seemed Alfred didn’t have it in the bag after all.
“If you’ll excuse me, I have other guests to see to.” And just like that the skeleton Alfred clambered to its feet and wandered off to the edge of the cavern and disappeared.
“Now, who are you?”
“My name is Taysia and this here is Mack. We’d like to leave your kingdom. We were sent here by mistake.”
“Well yes of course. Quite a bit involved in getting someone out of the Underworld you know.”
“No, I didn’t know. But as I said, I ended up here by mistake. I’m not meant to be down here. Neither are all the people in that cavern back that way. There was a glitch and we were trapped here.”
Hades looked curious. “I don’t get many visitors you know. Why don’t you stay a while and have a little game with me? Then we’ll see what we can do about getting you out of here.”
Taysia sighed. “Cards only. No funny business.”
“Yes, just cards.” He held his hands up in defeat. “If you’re up for a little wager, we could do that. How about if I win you have to stay here for the next 100 years and if you win, I’ll let you and all your friends leave.”
“That’s one hell of a deal.”
“Well I thought it was quite fair. I could kill you instead if you’d prefer?” He cackled and suddenly he became the Hades she’d always imagined.
“No, let’s go with the first deal.”
“Right well, rules are really very simple. Deck is here. Draw a card each turn. Play a card each turn. First one to 1000 points wins,” he said all this quite quickly and Taysia caught part of it only to realize she had no idea how to earn points.
[New Quest – Beat Hades at cards
Reward – 200 XP and freedom from the underworld]
“Hades, I missed part of that. How exactly do you earn points?”
Mack settled next to her.
“He can’t help.” Hades pointed at the Minotaur.
“Sure,” Taysia agreed. “But how do I earn points?”
She tried again.
“You’ll figure it out as we play.”
“What? No. That doesn’t work for me.”
Taysia was too busy arguing that she didn’t notice he’d already dealt her a hand.
“Okay, guests go first.” Suddenly Taysia wished she’d paid more attention when he had been playing with Alfred.
She drew a card. She picked up her hand. She played a card. The first one she found a king.
“Great game. I won. You lost. Guess you stay here for 100 years.”
Hades declared himself the winner.
“What, how? All I did was draw a card and play it.”
“You drew a card before picking up your hand that’s 800 points to me. Then you played a King without first playing the rest of the cards A through Queen and that’s another 300 points so I win.”
“What. You never told me any of those rules.”
“What, of course I did.” Hades rubbed his chin with one hand.
“I told her all the rules didn’t I Cerberus?”
The pup wagged its tail all three heads nodding emphatically.
“Oh, what does the dog know. It’s a dog.” Taysia argued.
“Mack will tell you.” She turned to Mack.
“You didn’t tell her that rule.”
“Well okay, maybe I omitted a few small rules. But how about a rematch if it’s such a big deal?”
Taysia shook her head “No rematch. You’re just going to let me and my friends go. I’m not playing games now.”
“Okay, fine. But you have to do me a favor first. My Cerberus is still growing, and he needs a new collar. Well. 3 new collars. And being lord of the Underworld and all that I can’t be off searching for the ingredients. You get them for me, and I’ll let you and all your friends leave. If you fail, I’ll kill you.”
Taysia began to agree before realizing what Hades had said. “Wait. That wasn’t the deal before. If I lost, I just had to stay here. Now you’re going to kill me?”
“I know who you are Taysia, I know all about your past collecting things in Shizuku Tani. You’re going to collect everything I need, and it shouldn’t be a problem given your history.”
“That’s weird. You’re not real. How could you know about that?”
“Who says I’m not real. See how real I am when I kill you. If you don’t find the ingredients I need.”
[New Quest – Find ingredients for Cerberus’ Collar
Reward – 50 XP]
[5/35 Flobberwask Venom
2/15 Flobberwask Teeth
10/100 Spider Silk
30/50 Rat Fur
0/3 Hydraxius Head
0/3 Fury Blood Vial]
[New Quest – Craft Cerberus’ Collar
Reward – 150 XP and freedom from the Underworld]
The list continued. Most of it didn’t look too hard to come by. They’d already killed one adult flobberwask and rats had been plaguing their every move since they arrived, a fact Taysia could not pretend to be pleased about. Spiders weren’t too hard to find either. The other things she’d never heard of which worried her.
“Off you trot. Don’t have all day.” He ushered them back down the tunnel they’d come from.
As they headed away, they heard him call, “Alfred, come back. She wasn’t very good at cards. I much prefer you.”
As they walked away Taysia couldn’t help but giggle. That was definitely not the Hades she’d expected and now she was stuck hunting for random items to make his stupid giant dog a collar.
Just perfect. Maybe it would be easy after all.
They’d only gone a few minutes down the pathway when another flobberwask rumbled out of the tunnel floor. Only the tag above this one marked it as [Giant Flobberwask (210)]
“Holy shit.”
“We are in so much trouble.” Mack paused. There was no way they could win this one.
“Run,” Taysia screamed.
Mack began down the tunnel at a trot. He grabbed his weapon slashing at it as he went. Taysia did the same sending bolts of energy behind her. It disappeared into the floor. The rumbling continued.
It was definitely getting closer. Suddenly it reappeared, breaking through the ground right in front of them
[-120 HP (Giant Flobberwask)]
Okay it didn’t hit that much harder than the smaller one that was good.
But she couldn’t take many more of those hits.
“We need to keep going.” She tried ducking under its mass as it twisted to attack Mack. He moved around it, sneaking the same way as Taysia. They pushed through the tiny gap and rushed down the tunnel. It proved to be much slower going heading back as they pushed their way uphill. That didn’t seem to bother the flobberwask though. It disappeared again and reappeared just behind them this time. They kept running. A red in the corner of her vision indicated her stamina was running low which would be a real problem. They really needed to deal with this thing. It was way too high a level to deal much damage to. The swings against it they’d been doing hadn’t done much damage at all.
“Mack. I really don’t know if we can do this. It’s just too big. We really need to get out of here.”
She waited until it disappeared, this time she used her illusion to conjure an extra version of themselves before using the last of her mana to magic them around the upcoming bend in the tunnel.
The rumbling quieted after a few moments. Taysia hoped for the best but didn’t dare move.
The rumbling started up again but sounded like it was getting further away now.
She called to Mack, “Keep running.”
He nodded and took off at a fast trot leaving her trailing behind.
Her stamina dropped to zero several more times before they finally made it back to the fork in the road. Taysia gestured for Mack to wait. She needed to catch her breath. Her health had almost regenerated to full. But her stamina left a lot to be desired.
“Give me a moment, I want to check out that way.”
She puzzled how they were going to find a Hydraxius and what that might be. What about a Fury? What was that about. Vials of blood. Three of them. Maybe they could just drain the blood using the vials she’d picked up from her starter pack.
Mack stopped behind her and she heard the whoosh of his axe. She turned just in time to get splattered with the guts from his latest rat conquest. Another XP boost appeared.