They were about halfway through the trip back to the Visitors’ Palace when the world shook - not physically, but magically. A sleet of raw mana washed across Serenity; he doubted any of the others noticed it, but that told him one of two things had likely happened: a ley line had shifted or a dungeon had collapsed. In either case, it had to be close or it wouldn’t have been that obvious.
“What was that?” Acolyte Tinar looked around, startled. He’d clearly noticed something, but he didn’t seem to have a clue what it was.
“Where?” Helen tried to follow Tinar’s gaze, but she simply seemed puzzled. It made sense; she was only Tier One. Serenity doubted she even had Manasight, so she probably hadn’t noticed anything at all.
Acolyte Deek grunted. “Dungeon break, probably. They happen.”
Serenity shook his head. “Breaks don’t spray raw mana like that; there can be some, but that much? Not at this Tier.” Vengeance could only sense it with his Arcane affinity, which wasn’t nearly as good as Serenity’s Magesight was for sensing raw mana, but that was enough. Vengeance had studied dungeons. “It’s either a collapse or a ley line shift. Probably a ley line shift if you’re also getting breaks.”
After all, collapses happened when a dungeon died, which usually meant it was over-delved, while breaks happened when a dungeon wasn’t delved enough.
Acolyte Deek grunted again. “Doesn’t matter. I have to get you back to the Visitors’ Palace, not worry about something happening at a dungeon.”
Serenity vaguely wanted to do something, but this wasn’t his people or his planet. He’d just have to trust that they had people who were supposed to deal with it; most cities did. If nothing else, the people who delved the dungeon would cope. There was just one little detail he wasn’t certain the acolyte was aware of. “Are we going to detour around it, then? The mana came from more or less in front of us.”
Acolyte Deek frowned. “Might have to. Tinar, do you know where the local dungeons are? Is there one on our route back to the palace?”
Acolyte Tinar had to think about that one. Even so, it was only a couple of minutes before he nodded. “Sort of, yeah. We don’t actually pass it, but the Glass Sculpture dungeon is fairly close to the route and less than a mile ahead of us.”
Acolyte Deek brought them to a halt and pulled out a paper map of the city. Serenity carefully took as many detailed pictures as he could; he hadn’t been allowed to see any street-level maps of Lyka previously and the maps he had seen were obviously stylized.
Unsurprisingly, the map didn’t match the sector outline he’d seen on smaller scale maps - at least, not if he were in the city sector he’d been told he was in. It was sort of vaguely similar, which made Serenity wonder whether he was looking at extreme competence at hiding information or a complete lack of attention to detail; it could have been either, but he was leaning towards the second. Despite his clear adherence to the rules, Acolyte Deek hadn’t even tried to keep Serenity from looking at the map.
He probably assumed that Serenity couldn’t memorize it from the quick look he was getting. Serenity wasn’t about to tell him just how wrong he was.
Acolyte Deek’s nod pulled Serenity’s attention back to him as he folded up the map. “That’ll work. It’ll add a half hour or so to the transit time, but we can stay out of the area that might be affected by a dungeon break.”
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It was obvious that Acolyte Deek was badly mistaken when, about an hour later, they first heard and then saw a glass rhinoceros step onto the road ahead of them. It was a very long way down the road, long enough that Serenity could only see it in the distance because, like most of the trip to the temple, there was no other traffic on this road. Serenity doubted it had been cleared for him, either, since they were on a detour; no, it seemed like there were roads where the only traffic was people in Church flyers.
As dungeon breaks went, this was strange. There should have been the sounds of destruction and fighting, but they could clearly hear the gigantic moving sculpture’s footfalls. Serenity looked in the direction the transparent herbivore came from and didn’t see a trail of destruction.
That was very unusual but it probably explained why the rhino was farther than expected; it was sneaking, as much as a gigantic glass sculpture could sneak. What Serenity didn’t understand was why it was sneaking. Dungeon monsters followed their archetypes and a rhinoceros was a tanky boss, not a stealth monster.
Acolyte Deek was already turning the flyer around to get away from the creature.
Serenity narrowed his gaze and triggered the active portion of Magesight. Like the Vital Sight it replaced, he could use it to get an idea of the power of anyone he could see. It wasn’t nearly as detailed as feeling with his aura, but the rhino wasn’t close enough for him to reach it with his aura, and he’d rather not get closer. “Tier Three, definitely a boss.”
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
That was unfortunate but not as bad as it could have been. He’d hoped for lower; Tier Zero or Tier One would have been relatively easy to deal with. On the other hand, Tier Five was entirely plausible on a world like Lyka, and that would be far worse.
The glass rhinoceros looked around, but when it noticed them it started to head towards them. Serenity wasn’t sure if that was just because they were moving or because it could see people, but either way it wasn’t a good sign. Many monsters didn’t pay attention to things as far away as they were, but this one certainly did.
“Boss?” Acolyte Tinar sounded confused by the term. “I don’t see any other monsters. Why isn’t it destroying stuff?”
Acolyte Deek answered before Serenity could. “It’s something you don’t want to fight. Tier Three? I’d rather not face that without a group. Not if it’s a commander-type.” Deek was clearly used to slightly different terminology, but it was close enough.
Serenity kept his eyes on the glass pachyderm. “You’re going to want to either speed up or turn. It’s catching up, but I doubt it can turn quickly.”
The rhinoceros seemed to still be gaining speed.
Deek tried, but it seemed like the flyer couldn’t go any faster. When they turned to follow a smaller road, Serenity thought they’d gotten away.
He wasn’t entirely happy about leaving a monster alive behind him, but this still wasn’t his planet. It was emphatically not his responsibility to deal with this dungeon break, even if he still thought it might be a collapse instead. That didn’t change whether or not it was his responsibility, only the scale of the disaster.
Surely they had someone dealing with it. Surely.
There was traffic on the smaller street, but it wasn’t flyers. It seemed to be people on foot, sometimes with carts they pulled themselves. There was no way they’d be able to get away from the rhino; the flyer wasn’t that fast by Serenity’s standards, but even if people could move faster for a short period of time, they couldn’t keep it up for as long as the rhino probably could; it was both a statue and a dungeon monster. Golems of any sort tended to not get tired easily.
Serenity was about to ask what the two acolytes were going to do about all the people they were passing when he heard a crash, followed by shouting and screaming. The rhino was still following. It seemed to have failed to turn sharply enough and crashed into the building on the outside of the turn. Serenity winced at the thought of the people who were probably hurt back there and the others who would be as it tore into them.
Only that wasn’t what happened.
People scrambled out of the way of the glass rhinoceros as it tore itself out of the rubble. Serenity debated hopping out of the flyer to help. This wasn’t his planet, but he didn’t think he could stand by and not do anything.
The rhinoceros bellowed as it pulled itself out of the rubble.
Serenity couldn’t stand by and watch. Killing the thing would be a pain on his own, but his Tier Four skills would help. It was only Tier Three and while it was a far tougher Tier Three than a human, he wasn’t human.
The people who were about to be killed, on the other hand, were human. More importantly, they were only Tier Two or three; a few were even Tier One. They didn’t belong anywhere near a monster like that even if they were armed, which they weren’t. It might not be his planet, but that didn’t mean he wanted to watch people die when he could stop it.
He was muttering curses as he hopped out of the flyer. He turned his dive into a roll to bleed off the velocity and finished with rolling to his feet. It was a good thing the flyer wasn’t going all that fast; he’d managed that without even getting bruises. His armor helped, but mostly it was the lack of speed. “Keep going! I’ll deal with this thing, then catch up.”
Catching up might be difficult if they kept going flat out, but he’d figure it out. If nothing else, he knew where both Rissa and Ita were; he could follow them to the Visitors’ Palace even if he had to travel on foot.
Serenity charged towards the glass rhino. He needed to be a little closer for the best use of his spells; even more importantly, he needed to be closer to get the rhino’s attention. He still felt like an idiot for doing this, but he couldn’t just let the rhino kill people when he could stop it, even if this wasn’t his planet.
He heard a shout from behind him; it sounded like someone swearing, but Serenity’s attention was ahead of himself. People were scattering out of the way, and there didn’t seem to be anyone else intending to do anything about the monster.
The transparent sculpture turned and looked down the street. It ignored all of the people running from it in favor of heading directly towards Serenity, even though he was farther away. That was strange; normally, a monster would go after anything or anyone, and he hadn’t even done anything to get its attention.
Serenity slowed to a stop. If it already had its attention on him, all he had to do was wait until it came in range. His best option was a Death Magebolt; at Tier Four, it should significantly hurt the animated sculpture. It was a good thing that his Death Affinity could hurt things that weren’t technically living; Serenity knew and understood why some didn’t, but to him, death wasn’t a lack of the Life Affinity. Anything could die.
“Lord Serenity. Please get on the flyer.” Acolyte Deek’s voice came from right behind him. It seemed like he didn’t have any intention of going to safety while Serenity dealt with the monster. “We should keep moving. The monster is already getting closer.”
Was the glass rhino charging towards him or the flyer? Now that he knew they’d come back for him, it seemed entirely plausible that it was simply ignoring everyone on foot. That was weird for a monster, but perhaps it hated things that could fly for some reason?
Serenity shook his head. “It’s faster than us. If we try to get away from it, it’ll just kill people as it follows us; I think it hates the flyer.”