Christmas Core, page 10
But something had entered his dungeon in the middle of the night, which was why he was instantly alerted. Except that it wasn’t just a group that decided to take the night shift because they wanted some extra time to delve.
No, it wasn’t that at all. Instead, it seemed to be a huge group of Adventurers; he counted nearly 30 of them before they stopped coming, and they appeared determined. What really caught his attention, though, was the last 5 that arrived at the back of the pack.
It was the man Lance and his women, back from the dead.
Chapter 13
* Uh… what do I do? *
“There’s nothing that you can do,” Keebles said, obvious worry on his face and in his voice. “Just hope that this Santa Claus of yours is powerful enough to hold them back. Fortunately, none of them look particularly powerful – but there are a lot of them, if you hadn’t noticed.”
Oh yes, Elmer had noticed. In fact, he was laser-focused on them, which was why he heard the arrogant man speaking shortly after walking into his dungeon, despite it being no more than a loud whisper.
“Right, we need to get in and destroy this thing before my uncle gets wind of our presence in here. After what my father said, I doubt my uncle would turn a blind eye to something like this… but I will get my revenge.”
While it would’ve made sense for the man to want revenge against the dungeon that had killed them, Elmer had the suspicion that it wasn’t the Dungeon Core that this waste of space wanted to enact his revenge upon. Who exactly was his target of vengeance didn’t really matter, though, because it all came with the same objective: destroying Elmer’s Core.
Unfortunately, there was nothing else that Elmer could do now that there were Adventurers in his dungeon. Even the rage that had consumed him last time was absent, as fear replaced it, though not in great enough quantities to trigger any type of reaction in his Minions. Even knowing how wrong it was, he still attempted to regain the anger that had helped him last time, but he couldn’t manage to summon enough to matter. The Dungeon Core had already gotten what he considered justice on the man during his last visit, so everything he tried to feel was simply artificial.
As expected, the wave of Adventurers blew through the first cave, swarming the Polar Bears and tearing them apart; over half of the Adventurers seemed to be wielding swords and shields, and it was easy enough for them to overwhelm the Inflatables so that they had no chance. Neither did the Elves, who were ineffective against the shielded people as they advanced in a ragged line, evidence of an executed plan; poorly executed, because there was still a little confusion as some people didn’t know where to go, as well as getting in each other’s way – but a plan, nonetheless.
The second cave was a lot easier for Lance and the women with him this time, because numbers meant that the Nutcrackers had very little chance to even attack. One of the Adventurers actually managed to fall in the Pit Wrap, but he was quickly extricated without any difficulty. As for the Holly Hobble Defensive Obstacle, there were a few healers that managed to eliminate the garland that wrapped up a half-dozen of the sword-and-shield individuals, but in truth it didn’t really matter. There were plenty of people available to combat the horde consisting of a trio of Gingerbread Brigades, and the Flocking Christmas Cards were burned out of the air by a volley of fireballs created by a handful of wizards.
It was only when the group encountered the two Inflatable Santa Rexes that they suffered their first real injuries, as apparently they didn’t know there were two. Elmer figured that if they were going off the information that the fleeing healer had seen, then she probably didn’t see the second one when she was being “eaten” by one of them.
One of the Adventurers nearly had his head decapitated as one of the Rexes bit down on his unsuspecting form. If it wasn’t for the crowd of others behind him that witnessed the attack, then it was entirely possible that he would’ve been done for; as it was, he was saved when the Inflatable was torn apart by about 8 different swords, and was quickly healed up by the healers bringing up the rear.
Through it all, Lance and (what Elmer was just now realizing were) the only women present in the entire group didn’t even lift a finger. The Dungeon Core figured that the annoying man had probably hired the others as some sort of bodyguards, like celebrities did back on Earth; unlike Earth, though, he couldn’t imagine the young man being like that. In Elmer’s opinion, he was too repulsive personality-wise to ever be considered someone important.
“Alright, I have no idea what is in this room, so try not to die.” That was it; no pep talk or cautions to be careful. Just “try not to die”.
* I dislike this guy more and more every time I see him. *
“Yeah, he’s definitely not the best Adventurer I’ve heard about. Not the worst, either,” his Helper remarked. Elmer couldn’t imagine anyone worse than this guy, but he supposed anything was possible.
Finally, his third cave was being attempted, though not in any way he imagined. The first line of fighters crept forward cautiously, looking in every direction for any threats. Unfortunately for them, they never looked up.
The first of his Christmas Light-ning Nets detached from the ceiling and landed on top of three of the Adventurers, bringing them to the ground as they were instantly electrocuted. Elmer was able to see that the electrocution wasn’t nearly enough to kill them, merely enough to incapacitate them, but he was thrilled to see that they worked. Unfortunately, there were plenty of others nearby that could help to extricate them from their situation – or so they thought.
Three of Santa’s Reindeer suddenly took off from their hiding place in the ice fortress near the exit, launching magically into the air. Glittery sparkles representing the magic of Christmas trailed from their hooves as they glided through the air, dive-bombing those trying to free the electrocuted Adventurers. The unexpected attack was a success, as three of the fighters were so distracted by the Christmas Light-ning net that they didn’t see the antlers that impaled their backs, lifting them off the snow. The Reindeer flung their victims off of their head-weapons, and as the victims fell back to the ground Elmer could see that they were severely hurt – but not dead. Some intense healing spells from the healers could patch them up in no time.
That was when the Snowmage, the giant snowman on top of the fortress, shot out an ice ball at the grouped Adventurers in the back. When it hit one of the wizards, who was trying to aim at one of the reindeer with what appeared to be a large fireball, it broke apart into a hundred pieces, knocking down the wizard from the impact and sending fragments of ice shooting in nearly every direction. Some of those fragments hit a few of the other wizards and healers, distracting them from what they were doing, but most of the group was relatively unfazed. One of the reindeer was hit by another wizard’s fireballs and fell to the ground with a crunch, breaking its neck from the collision with the packed snow below. Even more spells were tossed out, and a few arrows were shot from the handful of archers that were part of the group, but only one of the fireballs managed to clip the hindquarters of a Reindeer.
It didn’t crash, but it did end up landing awkwardly near the entrance of the fortress. As it stumbled around, appearing helpless, that was all the fighters needed to go after it to finish it off.
A half-dozen Elves popped up from behind the fortress wall and sent their pop gun ammo at the healers and wizards in the back, distracting them enough that one of the antler-impaled Adventurers succumbed to his injury.
One down, 29 to go.
As 8 Adventurers passed the threshold of his Runaway Sleigh Defensive Obstacle on the way to kill the injured Reindeer, however, the death counter increased by 4. Everyone was surprised when a sleigh appeared out of nowhere and shot across the room, its speed and weight enough that it was like being hit by a truck, and collided into the group. Half of them managed to move enough out of the way that they were just flung aside violently, but four of them were hit straight on, giving them no chance even with their shields hastily brought to bear.
From there, it was a chaotic battle of long-range attacks from the Snowmage and Elves against the wizards and archers, along with the single airborne Reindeer that was enough of a distraction that it managed to prolong the battle for an extra few minutes before it was brought down. Eventually, a trio of large fireballs got past the hastily constructed ice barrier the Snowmage was relying on to keep it safe, and it melted so quickly it produced a cloud of steam. Arrows and a lucky gust of wind that blew one of the Elves off the fortress wall finished the rest of the opposition, and even the 2 other Christmas Light-ning Nets that trapped some more of the Adventurers were nothing more than an annoyance.
In total, only 5 of the Adventurers had died, though it was obvious that the healers and wizards were starting to get low on their Mana. After watching one group of Adventurers after another delve through his dungeon, Elmer was starting to learn the signs.
None of them even looked at the presents that were left as loot as they progressed through the fortress entrance, the swords of the 10 remaining fighters making short work of the ice bars blocking their path. Just like that, the group had made it to Santa’s Workshop; a few losses along the way, but Elmer wasn’t sure if it was enough to make a difference.
For the first time ever, an Adventurer was stepping foot in his final defensive room – and Elmer had to admit that he felt his Core flooded with fear. The day arrived much sooner than he expected, and he was sure that he wasn’t ready to go yet. Unfortunately, it wasn’t up to him whether he lived or died. It was up to the boss up at the North Pole: Santa Claus.
As soon as the Adventurers arrived, his Elves came alive in the Workshop, pretending to build toys; at the same time, Santa Claus stood up from the throne he had been sitting in, picking up the giant red sack at his feet. However, something was different about Santa that he noticed immediately; while old St. Nick was probably around 6 feet tall while he was sitting down, the moment he was on his feet he began to grow.
10 feet tall.
15 feet tall.
20 feet tall.
Santa Claus finally stopped growing when he was a little over 25 feet tall, and Elmer realized that he was half the height of the giant Christmas tree behind him, where his Dungeon Core rested semi-hidden on the top as the star.
* I can see what you meant by vastly more powerful now, Keebles. Let’s hope that it’s enough. *
“I have no doubt that this will be epic,” the Elven Helper said. It took Elmer a second to realize that Keebles hadn’t said whether it would be epic because they won, or epic because they lost. Either way, it was out of his hands.
To say that the Adventurers were shocked when they entered would be an understatement. Despite the wide eyes, however, none of them froze in fear. Either they had worked together to do something like this before, or they had an intuitive sense that they needed to move; no matter the reason, they immediately started to deploy around the Workshop, drawing fire from the Elves at their workstations. They were largely ignored however, except for one of the archers, who started firing arrows at them to keep them dodging instead of firing additional candies at the Adventurers.
The rest of the Adventurers, though, had all of their focus on the big guy.
He couldn’t blame them – because Santa Claus was an imposing figure. Not only was he 25 feet tall, but his girth had expanded to match his new size, and his big red sack had also grown in proportion.
Before the Adventurers could even start their attack, Santa Claus reached into the bag and pulled something out…
A giant teddy bear.
What else would Santa have in his big red sack of toys? When thinking about what the big guy could do during the creation of the “Boss”, Elmer had thought about the classic toys that he had grown up with, as well as some popular ones from when he was a young man. Theoretically, he could’ve included some modern ones, but he didn’t know enough about them to have them fully replicated – especially since most of them seemed to use electronics as part of their construction. As a result, almost everything inside of Santa’s bag was something he really knew about, because they were familiar in his younger years – and who didn’t know about teddy bears, anyway?
Apparently, all of the people of this world didn’t know about teddy bears – because they just looked confused as Santa Claus held it up momentarily before throwing it at the advancing line of fighters.
It must have been heavy; when the bear hit one of the Adventurers, he was completely flattened on his back, despite him holding up his shield. It didn’t kill him, though; no, that happened when the animated teddy bear stood up from where it had been tossed and stomped on the man’s head. Analogies to Gallagher and his penchant for bursting watermelons with sledgehammers aside, suffice it to say that the strength of the teddy bear was as much or more than a real bear of its size.
Granted, real bears normally didn’t have a cute red bow tied around their necks and soft, squishy fur surrounding their bodies, but the comparison was good enough.
Unfortunately, just like an actual teddy bear, it was basically a stuffed animal; it didn’t have any special resistance to being attacked, and the other sword-wielding Adventurers were able to cut through its outer shell, causing stuffing to fall out. The bear didn’t seem to care, however, because it continued to slam its large fists (though that was a bit of a misnomer, as they were basically just round extensions of its arms) into those surrounding it, sending them flying backwards even when blocked by a shield. It was holding its own until a large fireball slammed into its side, essentially vaporizing one whole arm and half of its body – but it kept fighting on… for all of a few seconds before it was completely dismembered by the assembled fighters.
Santa Claus wasn’t done, though, and while he was being peppered with arrows and a few fireballs – which basically bounced off of his red suit, which was extremely fire resistant (he went down chimneys, after all) – he was continuing to pull toys out of his big red bag. A handful of wooden blocks that were the size of one of the Elves – who had stopped shooting their pop guns and were now lobbing ornament grenades behind cover at the back line of Adventurers – were tossed out almost negligently, and when they fell they squished a wizard and a healer, their weight a lot more than just being wood. If Elmer had to guess, they might have been filled with an inner core of lead, at least based on the *thump* they made when they hit the floor.
A spinning top was tossed out next at his feet, which almost instantly took the place of the teddy bear as it spun on its own toward the fighters. It moved as if of its own volition, bowling into the assembled shields arrayed against it, knocked the Adventurers down like bowling pins. It didn’t do much damage to them, but what came next took advantage of their disarray.
An old-style wooden rocking horse, nearly 15 feet tall, slammed onto the floor, its curved bottom rail rocking forward, squishing a pair of fighters on their backs. It moved forward as part of the rocking, killing another Adventurer before it was hit from the side by another giant fireball, which unfortunately blew a hole in the brace that was keeping it attached to the rail. It fell apart, a flaming mess that ended up slightly burning a few of the others nearby, but not severely.
Santa wasn’t even close to being done. A massive bright pink hula-hoop was pulled out next and flung out at the wizards, healers, and archers, tossed horizontally like Santa was playing one of those carnival games where you had to land a ring around the neck of a glass bottle to win a prize. It landed flat on the floor around 5 of the surprised Adventurers, where it then lifted up into the air and quickly shrunk in size. One of the wizards saw what was happening and attempted to fire off a spell, but it was too late. The hula-hoop encircled them all and pushed them together as it tightened around them; squished together and unable to move, their arms pinned to their sides, they had no hope of breaking free as the pink toy started to cause some serious internal damage to their bodies as it shrunk even further.
The others around them turned to try and free them, but a rain of shaped metal chunks landed amongst them, the basketball sized jacks made of iron essentially squishing them into the hardwood floor with enough force to shatter most of their bones. A wizard managed to avoid being hit by the metal jacks, but was unable to avoid the heavy pink rubber ball the size of a large exercise ball that smeared him against the far wall.
Chunks of Play-doh rained down on the fighters as Santa threw out a handful of the shapeable substance, knocking a few more of them down and adhering to anything it touched, hardening until they were harder than stone. A trio of little dolls floated down using their dresses to slow their fall and landed among the battered and beleaguered sword-and-shield bearers, though “little” was a relative term; in reality, they were about the size of toddlers.
“Mama!” They shouted in unison, so loudly that the sound burst the eardrums of the fighters, which caused them to scream in pain; however, the Adventurers were used to pain and they fought through the blood seeping out of their ears to cut down the dolls before they could cause any more damage.
There were only about a half-dozen of the Adventurers alive at this point – excepting Lance and the women with them. They were standing in the entrance to the room, watching everything happening with shocked and worried expressions on their faces, though the arrogant man was searching around the room for something. It didn’t take long for Elmer to realize what he was looking for, especially when his eyes locked onto his Dungeon Core hiding at the top of the giant tree. The fighter whispered to the archer woman and pointed up at Elmer’s Core; a second later, the Dungeon Core was staring death in the face as an arrow was pointed at his vulnerable form.
Thankfully, the archer’s aim was fouled as she released, as a neon green yo-yo in Santa’s hand whipped out and slammed into Lance, sending him flying into the gathered women. The arrow that was released sunk into the Christmas tree about 5 feet below his Core, and his brush with death shook Elmer more than he liked to admit.
