Dungeon Heart: Halls of Stone, page 19
“Ready? Three, two, one. [Shoulder Charge]!” James growled out, utilizing his inner energy to gain power. His heart sped up, blood flowed in greater quantities to the muscles of his legs and back, and he felt his body heat up. He leaned his shoulder against the back of his shield, his muscles tensed, the toe of his boot pressed roughly against the stone floor. And then, he was off.
Charging forth, James let the enemy bounce against his shield, fracturing claw and fang, and turning away the cold metal from spears as they collided with his shield. Behind him, he could hear howls of pain and tearing sounds as his leader sliced away at those who attempted to pursue or fell to James’s bullish rush. Wolves and kobolds could not stop the momentum of his advance, though every blow to his shield made his ribs burn as they strained under the impact.
Seconds slipped by as James and Ella penetrated the defenses of the enemy, numerous collisions resounding against James’s shield in that short span of time. A moment later, Ella and James were standing with Mei and Ziggurd in the back lines, though Adder seemed to be preoccupied peppering the enemy with knives. They had crossed the room in just a dozen seconds. Ella only knew this because that was exactly how long James’s skill remained active every time he used it.
“Where did you guys come from?” Ziggurd asked as he cast a spell that enhanced an ally’s speed. He looked tired, his hair grimy with sweat and dirt, his once clean robes now dirty and worn.
“Later!” Ella barked as she took a position beside James, acting like a protective barrier between the enemy and Ziggurd. “Status report now!”
Before Ziggurd could reply he was forced to start chanting again, and so it was Mei who took over and answered for him. “This seems to be a chokepoint of some sorts. All three teams you saw entered through a different door, and before we knew it, they all shut close and locked up. Then all these creatures came in through other doors and here we are.”
“So, a monster nest room?” Ella asked as she engaged a kobold that came charging her way.
“Don’t think so,” Mei replied instantly as she let loose another arrow. “Feels more like a testing area. Despite the numbers, most are fairly common enemies.”
“Great,” Ella replied drily.
“Better than a monster nest,” Mei countered as she took aim at her next target.
No more was said between them as they joined the fray.
Lerron was trembling, not with fear, but with rage. This was not how his glorious conquest of the dungeon was supposed to go! He had planned it all out with surgical precision, creating strategies and schemes without end for days and nights. He had selected the most appropriate team, the Red Lance, a team who specialized in spearheading quests that required exploration and survival skills, and proceeded to gift them with some higher quality equipment, which should have upped their abilities to perform. He had bribed other teams, fed false information to other nobles, and even tried to get as much unreleased information about the dungeon as possible beforehand.
With the amount of preparation that he had put into this, he was certain that victory was all but his. The other nobles should have been dancing in the palm of his hand by now! And the dungeon itself should have been but a trophy presented to him on a silver platter. One that was so perfectly within reach that all he had to do was stretch out his hand and take it from the world.
And yet, here he was. Stuck in a stalemate with a bunch of hollow headed fools who could only use their muscles instead of their brains, fighting against an enemy that seemed to not tire or understand the meaning of fear. To make matters worse, his team was not performing as well as it had in the past, days of mental exhaustion taking their toll now in the time of crisis. And to top it all off, since that blue female golem had come into the picture, things seemed to be worsening by the minute.
The creature was naught but a golem carved from some sort of blue stone, but whoever had carved her out of stone and polished her into the beauty he saw before him was a true master of the art. The proportions of her body were perfect, the lines of her figure curving and accentuating with such delicacy that if it wasn’t for the color of the stone, he would have claimed a nymph or some other unearthly beauty had come to grace them with its presence. Her eyes in particular felt so alive that he could almost believe that she was conscious, and was not just a mere construct.
Yet that awe he felt as he gazed upon the golem quickly burned to ash as he witnessed sword and spear turned away from its surface, leaving not a single mark as far as he could tell. The weight of her body must have been prodigious as well, for even heavy attacks that should have made her take a step back were met head on, and the effect on her was minimal even though she utilized what seemed to be only a basic defensive stance.
As if that was not enough, the creature wielded a large halberd, and swung it with monstrous strength, forcing even B rank adventurers to be wary of the strikes. Beauty and power were personified in this golem, an expressionless fairy of death if he ever saw one. It was an elegant contrast of beauty and strength, but one that infuriated him at present. Gnashing his teeth, he forced himself to keep from yelling obscenities at his incompetent adventurers, aware that he had no guards other than them in this hellhole of a dungeon.
Forcing himself to remain calm, Lerron stepped back. He was out of his depth here, fighting against creatures such as these, but he could still be of use. He had participated in wars before, and he could command soldiers. But to be able to command well, one had to be aware of the happenings of the field of battle. So he observed the field, his mouth a thin, hard line painted on his long face.
Within minutes he realized something was amiss. There were fewer corpses than there should have been on the floor, and far more blood than there should have been on the adventurers. Blood of their own, to be specific. In a situation such as this, even though the three adventuring teams were moving as three separate units, they still should have an upper hand against a disorganized mob of relatively weaker monsters.
He could not make heads or tails of that until he focused on the enemy, and realized that the creatures that the adventurers faced were not attacking wildly as he had first believed them to be doing. Instead, there was a sort of order to their chaos. For instance, the odd bears that could walk on two legs led the charge, swatting aside lances or occupying the largest adventurers, while the wolves filled in the spaces between them, flanking the adventurers and snapping at their heels. When threatened, the wolves would retreat slightly, coincidentally into the defendable range of nearby kobolds that held spears, or large snakes that could strike at lightning speed. The willowy golems, though mostly on the verge of death, would lash out at the vanguard, forcing them to defend with their sporadic attacks.
Baffled, Lerron gasped at the situation before him. Most of these creatures should have been easy game for B rank adventurers. Wolves and snakes should offer little challenge to them unless it was in large numbers or they were rare variants of the species, but the synergy between the different species had done quite the number on the adventurers. Moreover, the volume of noise was amplified in the enclosed space, making it difficult to communicate even at distances of a few meters.
It was a brilliant trap. The bears would demand the attention of adventurers, and that left them open to the wolves, and those few who would chase after the wolves would often be met by spear and fang from the kobolds and snakes. Simple, but cunning, and terrifyingly effective by the looks of it all. The adventurers had underestimated their opponent; they had thought the battle all but won when they had seen snakes and wolves come their way. But he saw what that had led to now. This overconfidence had resulted in this mess. A sense of urgency welled up within Lerron, his eyes widening as he sensed the danger of the situation. He tried to direct the flow of battle by shouting orders and frantically pointing at the direction where people should go, but the sheer amount of noise strangled his voice so much so that he could barely be heard by the people directly in front of him, let alone the adventurers that were in the midst of the fray even further beyond him.
Wringing his hands, Lerron started to feel cold sweat begin to form on his brow as the implications of the situation started to dawn on him. There were still twice the number of animals and monsters than there were adventurers, and the struggle had been going on for a while now. He could see clear signs of exhaustion starting to show on the adventurers of several teams, and many of these adventurers had at least been bloodied by the creatures. From this point onwards, the injuries would only accumulate, and the chances of survival were likely to drop.
Wiping his brow, he let one of his hands reach into his pocket and curl around a smooth flask that fit comfortably in his hand. His fingers curled and uncurled around it as he contemplated his options, staring intensely at the battlefield before him as he backed himself up against the wall. His heart beat within his ribcage like a drum, hurting his chest. His jaw hurt as well, making an irritating grating sound as he ground his teeth with indecision. The flask was meant to be used in an emergency to take care of another team, or to create a distraction if it came to that. But in this room, using it could mean his doom.
That said, he felt that he had no choice. He could see now that if things continued as they were, the adventurers had a chance to win, but not by much. There would be significant casualties, and most of the people would likely die. He was also willing to wager that he and the other nobles would be amongst the dead.
Stuck between the lion and the tiger... Time to gamble. Time to go all in, Lerron thought grimly, and his resolution was made. He stepped forwards now and grabbed the shoulder of one of his adventurers, the archer, and told him to step further back to protect him. Then he went to the sorcerer and did the same. They both hesitated, but they backed up to stand by either side him. It didn’t matter too much to them in the end, for they could still support their team from their new position.
With his new meat-shields in place, Lerron licked his lips and pulled out the glass flask. Within it, a murky green and purple substance swirled slowly. He hated having to use this in such a way, but seeing no other way out, he threw it as hard as he could upwards into the air. The glass container spun in the air drunkenly and crashed somewhere in the middle of the battlefield.
The flask shattered, and its contents spilled. Slowly, a faint scent started to permeate the room. Sweet and spicy, combined with what smelled like iron, the scent intensified, and the creatures went wild. They threw themselves violently against the adventurers now, any semblance of their precious tactics gone. Like the wild beasts they were, they jumped forwards and tore into the adventurers, heedless of the fact that they were being cut down themselves.
If the battle before was chaotic in nature, now it had turned into the very image of mayhem as wolves leaped into the air and grabbed hold of the arms of men, tearing off pieces of flesh and armour, only to be gutted by a knife. Snakes with large fangs shot themselves into the face of adventurers, puncturing their eyes and faces, only to be smashed by maces or beheaded by swords. Kobolds rushed into the fray, attacking the injured with vengeance and became pierced by spells and arrows. The bears were the worst of the lot, however. They bull rushed some adventurers, and swiped at them with their mighty claws, their long arms allowing them to reach the enemy even as they stood on their hind legs, towering over adventurers like small giants. They struck at swords and men alike, caring not if they impaled themselves on the weapons of the adventurers as long as they dealt as much damage as possible.
Lerron’s eyes went wide as he realized he had made a miscalculation. While he had expected the creatures to become frenzied, he had not expected them to become suicidally vicious. His entire goal had been to force them to become disorganized and aggressive, not to turn them into even more vicious creatures. It was as if they had become avatars of vengeance and violence, willing to die in exchange for dragging an enemy down with them to the very pits of Hades.
After the vial shattered, the bloody fight lasted a mere five minutes, but those five minutes were enough to fill the survivors with terrible dread. Six adventurers stood where there had been nineteen originally, twenty-one if one took into account the two that came into the fray halfway through. On the enemy side, only the beautiful golem stood, covered in blood like her own weapon, expressionless as always. Six adventurers, three nobles, and one golem that stared at them impassively.
BANG
The sound of all the doors slamming open made everyone jump up in fright, save for the golem, who continued to stare at them. Looking around, they found that the entrances they came in were open, as was the exit behind the golem. Yet no one dared to move.
“Let us leave.” Finally, a feminine voice spoke up. It was none other than Duchess Bik’aard, whose normally sharp eyes looked weary and distant for once. “None of us can continue through the dungeon. Let us go back together. The price for continuing is too high.”
Still shaken from the vicious display that had occurred right before him, it took Lerron a second to find his voice. Once he did, Lerron jumped in on that idea, and so did the Viscount Xavier. Neither wished to continue through this accursed dungeon.
“Hold!” one of the adventurers said, looking around nervously, “Shouldn’t we take some of them back?”
“Of who?” Lerron replied, his voice not quite back to its normally collected tone despite his best efforts to calm down.
“Our comrades. Look, some of them still stir.” He pointed at a large man who shifted ever so slightly, but a thick pool of blood grew from under him. A broken spear shaft could be seen protruding from a fracture on the back of his armour.
“Are you mad?” Lerron asked incredulously. “You want to carry the dead now? You barely can walk by yourself by the looks of things, and you want to try to carry dying men? Please. We will be lucky if they don’t attract more animals to us with the stench of blood all over us. Let them be.”
“But—”
“If you really want to carry them so badly,” Lerron said icily, “you can do so on your own... If the golem even lets you get near them. If you want to grab anything, grab whatever pouches you can see and let’s leave quickly, before the golem decides she wants to dance with us again.”
The man nervously looked at Echo and licked his lips with worry. As emotionless as the golem was at the moment, he knew that she could move at any time. In his current state, the adventurer could match her blow for blow if she attacked... but only briefly. Eventually exhaustion would set in, and it would act in concert with his injured body to spell his doom. He had no doubt that if he engaged her right now, it would only be a matter of time before he was subdued by her blows.
With this thought in mind, he swallowed empty air. He quickly looked at his feet and swiped the satchel off a body that had a gaping wound on its neck, and another from the body beside it. They most likely contained some potions for healing, or some minor healing herbs, but it was better than nothing. Meek as a mouse, he joined Lerron and the rest, hobbling out of the room, going back from whence they came.
The group of nobles, along with the surviving adventurers, made their way out while keeping an eye on the mysterious blue golem who had remained still as a statue. Lerron let out a relieved sigh as they left the room, glad to not lose another meat-shield. He would have loved to stay and loot the corpses for anything that was useful, but he truly feared the golem would activate again and finish the job.
He did not dare spend more meat-shields to gather a handful of potions and equipment. Losing his team had already put him in a precarious situation in which he was relying on the good will of the adventurers and his two fellow nobles to survive. Every pawn was important right now. Thus, he swallowed his desire, turned on his heel, and strode out of the room with conviction, happy to ignore the pitiful moans of dying men and beasts alike.
Chapter 16
He remembered. His mother, who had long departed this world. His father, in his small room that smelled of herbs and minerals, where he created all his concoctions. The small but quaint house they had all lived in at some point. Then things had started to crumble apart after his mother’s death, and little by little his family slipped away from his grasp. His mind conjured up images of the Magic Academy of Elderstaff, with its wide gardens and porcelain statues, situated at the far west of the country, close to the mountain range that protected it.
He recalled the place with such detail that it was as if he was looking at it through a window. The rolling foothills upon which the academy sat, and the mountains that made for such a gorgeous sight with their high snowy peaks, so beautiful to look upon when the sun rose from the east with its warm orange light. It had been one of the most rewarding times in his life, as well as one of the most peaceful. There he could have spent his days listening to the lectures of his elders, learning about the path of magic.
At the time, he had no goals other than to study in the academy and eventually aim for the title of scholar, perhaps even become a member of the mage’s guild research division, and maintain his peaceful existence. Alas, that was not to be. In a rather unexpected twist of fate, a simple errand from one of his teachers gave way to the greatest turning point in his life since learning magic. Never in his wildest dreams had he expected to be confused for his teacher, much less abducted because of it.
Because his teacher had been ill, Ziggurd had offered to go in his place. He had traveled luxuriously, as the accommodations that had already been made for his teacher were passed on to him. Sweet cakes and tarts, soft pillows, comfortable chariots, all were his to use as he was sent on his quest. Quite a delightful time, until he found himself jumped in the middle of the night, his lips sealed by a gag and his staff taken from his grasp.
