After reducing the upper part of the castle to rubble, Bugsy used his new burrowing ability to dig a path into the crypts below.
As expected, the Neurotower was probably located at the dungeon’s bottom; the party couldn’t find the server anywhere above ground. Leaving a third of his team above ground to chase off stragglers, Basil ventured into the crypts with Shellgirl, Bugsy, Vasi, Kalki, and Plato. He distributed his newest crafting invention to them: stakes of sharpened garlic.
“Alright boys, these Impalers will always inflict a critical hit if they hit an Undead type,” Basil explained. “And with my Death’s Banner buff on, you should inflict supereffective damage at the same time. From my calculation, that’s a factor nine damage multiplier.”
“In short,” Plato summed it up. “If it’s dead, we can kill it?”
“Exactly smartass.” At this point, Basil’s entire build was as lethal to Undead monsters as it was to Dragons. “We’ve got dozens of them, so use them at will.”
“Ohoho, look at this!” Shellgirl put the stakes into her tentacle-cannons as if they were bullets. “My dear Vasi, how about a wager? The one who nails the most vamps has the loser wash the winner’s hair!”
“I would have done it for free, but I accept the challenge,” the witch replied before casting buffs on Basil. “Hasten.”
Time slowed down to a crawl as her spell took effect. The magic spread to the entire team through Basil’s All for One Perk, empowering them. Shellgirl strengthened him further with her Motivate buff and Kalki began to play a song.
> Kalki’s [Bardic Performance III] buffed all your stats.
Already empowered by the castle’s Field effect, Basil felt his muscles surged under his armor. He summoned his burning halberd to his hand and rushed through Bugsy’s tunnel.
The volcanipede dug a path into a gray maze of old bricks, kept alight by oil lamps and fleeting candles. Wooden coffins and stone sarcophagi lay open in the darkness, their inhabitants rushing at the incoming Bohens with desperate ferocity. Most were shambling zombie corpses surrounded by swarms of green ghostly flies and skeletons with bloody-red bones, but Basil noticed a few pale warriors in black armor among them. These knights’ red eyes glittered in the dark, and their swords swirled with dark energy.
Vampires.
> Pesti-Ghoul
> Level 40 [Undead/Bug]
> Faction: None.
> Redbone
> Level 36 [Undead/Demon]
> Faction: None.
> Vampire Knight
> Level 44 [Undead]
> Faction: None.
“How cute,” Plato said as he unsheathed his sword. The blade Joyeuse radiated light that caused the vampires to recoil. “They think they have a chance.”
“Let’s teach them the pecking order, shall we?” Basil replied with a smirk.
The Bohens charged into the fray at lightning speed.
“Fire Up!” Bugsy, who led the vanguard, immediately engaged hostilities by breathing a pyroclastic cloud. His flames burned as bright as the sun, illuminating the crypts and turning ghouls into candles. His power was simply so great that anything vulnerable to the Fire element died on the spot. Shellgirl covered him with volleys of projectiles and achieved headshot after headshot. Vasi kept the garlic stakes in a pouch around her waist, alternating between casting a fireball and throwing one at the nearest undead. Plato covered Kalki to keep him singing. The feline leaped from wall to wall in a blink, Joyeuse’s light incinerating any vampire that it touched.
Basil didn’t bother with stakes. He leaped forward with his halberd, then again while still airborne. His Double Jump Perk propelled him forward like a living missile and doubled his weapon’s power. He cut through any undead unfortunate enough to stand in his way. His halberd sliced through the vampires' armor like paper, shattered bones with a swing, and burned ghouls to ash in seconds.
His world could be described in two words.
> Supereffective hit!
> Supereffective hit!
> Supereffective hit!
The slaughter reminded Basil of their adventures in Paris’ catacombs… but this time, his party had come fully prepared, high-leveled, and well-equipped to handle undead monsters. Massacre didn’t even begin to describe it.
“Twenty-three, twenty-four…” Shellgirl counted before managing to nail two ghouls at once. “Double hit! Twenty-six!”
“I’m lagging behind by eight,” Vasi admitted. “I think you’ve got this one, Shellgirl!”
“I’m jealous, Kalki,” Basil admitted as he broke down a door into the next room. The blow blew a cloud of dust into an underground banquet hall full of rotten tables and old tapestries. Another group of undead monsters formed a shield wall inside; Basil could hear their shaking knees from here. “You’re the only one who will get experience out of this.”
“I would share if I could,” the bard replied in between songs.
“Boss, I sense the Neurotower nearby,” Bugsy said, pointing at the stone door behind the shieldwall with his pincers… and nearly lost balance under the weight of them. The volcanipede wasn’t yet used to his new appendages. “This way!”
Basil threw his halberd at the shieldwall like a javelin. His weapon went through steel and flesh alike before crashing through the door on the other side. He stomped on a vampire knight in a burst of speed and entered the Neurotower room, leaving his allies to clean up behind him.
> Supereffective hit!
“Heeeeeere's Johnny!” Basil giggled as he entered the Neurotower’s room.
The server stood strong in the middle of an underground chamber, shielded by a crimson forcefield. Paintings of battles adorned the walls under the light of a colossal chandelier hanging from the ceiling. The Boss of the dungeon occupied a throne of black wood with his family surrounding him.
As befitting of the castle above, the master below was yet another vampire; a dark-haired nobleman in fine red velvet clothes, with glittering skin and pale red eyes. He looked fabulously handsome, with an aquiline nose, a short goatee, and elegant features. He was neither old nor young, embodying the very picture of the ageless noble parasite.
> Count Edward “Eddie” Varney, Boss of Vampire Castle
> Level 50 [Undead]
> Faction: None.
Edward Varney? He wasn’t even Romanian!
Three pale vampire brides stood at their master’s side, each of them triplets with hair of a different color; red, blond, and dark. They were somewhat beautiful in fine white gowns, but were clearly frightened by Basil.
And then…
Then there was the child in the room.
“Daddy!” A small girl cried against the count’s chest. Dressed like a gothic lolita, she looked no older than five, with the same hair and eyes as the count. “I don’t want to die!”
“It’s alright, Darling,” the count whispered in the child’s ear. For some reason, his accent sounded British. “Everything will be alright, I swear this to you.”
“What the…” Basil found himself at a loss of words. He summoned his halberd to his hand, but didn’t find the courage to throw it straight at the Boss’ heart. “What’s the meaning of this?”
“So… you have made it this far.” The count smiled sadly at Basil, showing pointed teeth. “A noble knows when he is beaten. I accept defeat.”
Basil squinted in skepticism and glanced around the room in search of traps. Could the chandelier above collapse on his head? Would the paintings open paths to alternate dimensions as in the Louvre Pyramid?
By the time he scanned the room and found nothing, his allies had finished massacring the count’s soldiers. They walked into the Boss’ den and reacted with surprise at what they saw.
“What is a child doing here?” Vasi asked with a skeptical frown. “Is she a monster?”
“She’s so cute…” Bugsy whispered, before clearing his throat. “I mean, beware your doom fiends! Justice has come!”
“I understand,” the count said with a noble, resigned expression. “I knew this day would come. I surrender.”
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“After all your crimes, you think that will buy you anything?” Basil asked, halberd raised.
“All I did, I did to feed my family.” The count slowly rose from his throne with dignity, before gently forcing the child on his lap to the floor. “Please… I hope you will find the resolve to spare them. To spare my wives and child.”
“Ugh…” Basil struggled to find his words. He glanced at his teammates for support, and found them just as confused as he was. Of all the things they had expected to find in the Boss’ room, a tearful family separation wasn’t one of them. “Can monsters reproduce?”
“Can vampires reproduce?” Vasi asked with a frown. “Were… were my romance novels onto something?”
“Daddy, no!” The little girl desperately hung on to her father’s ankle. The three brides began to cry all at once behind the throne. “Don’t go!”
“I must, Darling,” the vampire count said while petting her on the head. “I’m sorry. I will not be able to attend your birthday.”
The whole scene felt like a bad comedy, but it was strange enough to stay Basil’s hand. He was simply too befuddled to attack.
Shellgirl, however, shrugged in annoyance. “So, are we shooting or not?”
“This…” Vasi raised a hand to attack and then lowered it. “This feels wrong somehow.”
“It’s a scam, Vasi!” Shellgirl waved a tentacle at the father and daughter duo. “It’s a family scam! They’re trying to make us feel sorry for them and lower our guards!”
“It’s working for me…” Bugsy said, tears of lava raining down his face and burning holes in the floor. “Boss, do we… do we truly have to kill them? To orphan this sweet little girl?”
“Having grown up without a father, I can sympathize,” Vasi admitted. “But something feels off…”
“I can’t put my finger on why,” Kalki said with a frown. “But this scene doesn’t add up.”
“Look at her!” Shellgirl pointed an accusing finger at the child. “She’s way too old to be his daughter! Even I know enough about humanoid biology to tell it!”
She had a point, though the child could have been created by the dungeon… which would make her a monster too.
Yes, something didn’t add up in this scenario.
Plato glanced at the child on the count’s lap, then at Basil, and back at the little girl. He sighed in annoyance and raised his sword. “Seriously?” he asked. “Am I the only member of this team immune to Illusion effects?”
Plato swung Joyeuse and unleashed a blade of wind at the girl.
His action caused Bugsy to scream in horror and startled Basil… until the attack hit its mark and lifted the veil of illusions. The little girl exploded into a cloud of smoke and changed forms before the group. One second she was a human, and the next she had become a small tiger cub eerily similar to Plato himself.
> Renfield, Rakshasa Kitten
> Level 45 [Beast/Demon]
> Faction: None.
A short, awkward silence followed. Basil’s eyes widened as his brain processed the scene before him, while Bugsy’s gaze hardened into outrage. “You…” the volcanipede snapped his mandibles. “You… liar…”
“Oops,” the enemy Rakshasa said, before bravely running behind the vampire’s throne. “Jig’s up, Eddie! You’re on your own!”
The vampire count forced himself to smile, but didn’t quite manage to make it look genuine. “I can explain.”
“That’s just pathetic,” Vasi said with a cold, contemptuous tone.
“Treachery!” Bugsy shouted in anger. The volcanic craters on his back release a cloud of ash in the room, causing the team to cough. “Treachery! Betrayal! Betrayal!”
“I should have known we couldn’t trust a harem protagonist!” Basil snarled as he raised his halberd for the kill. The vampire count’s eyes widened in alarm, as did those of his brides. Basil expected them to fight for their lives now that their poorly-chosen strategy had failed.
“Please don’t kill me!”
Instead, the vampire count begged at Basil’s feet with tears of fear in his eyes. The undead moved as if hastened, crossing the room in the blink of an eye. The Dragonknight was so shocked by the Boss’ cowardice that he failed to react as Edward Varney grabbed his left leg with both arms and weeped against it.
“Please don’t kill me!” the count pleaded. “I’ll give you my wives if you spare my unlife!”
“Eddie, you cockroach!” The red-headed bride snapped at her husband in rage. Neither of her compatriots looked happy with his behavior either. “Don’t sell us off like peasants!”
“Do you take me for an Ottoman?” Basil sneered in disgust as he raised his halberd. “Show some self-respect, damn it! Aren’t you a noble?!”
“I’m a vampire!” the count replied. “I’m a leech with good PR! Sucking up to others is what I do best!”
And he was sticky too! Basil tried to throw the Boss off him, but he stubbornly wouldn’t let it go. “Somebody help me,” he asked his teammates as he pushed off the count’s face with a free hand. “I can’t get him off my leg!”
Bugsy happily accepted, grabbing the vampire’s legs with his mandibles and throwing him back at his throne. “You will pay for your treachery, villain!” the volcanipede snarled. His body radiated steam in his anger. “You will pay for toying with my feelings!”
“Bugsy, calm down!” Shellgirl took a step back as the temperature rose around her friend. “You’re burning!”
“She was so cute…” Bugsy shed tears of wrathful lava. “Family is sacred, vampire! How dare you sully it with falsehood?! You will burn for this! You will burn!”
“Shouldn’t you be defending your family with all your strength?” Vasi asked in contempt.
“I’ve seen you slaughter my army, I know you’ll kill me in one blow,” the vampire said, kneeling on the ground like the worm he was. At least he was wise enough to know how this would end. “I surrender!”
“Just offer your head,” the Dragonknight insisted, utterly repulsed by the Boss’ cowardice. “A clean slice and it’ll be all over.”
“Please don’t!” The count looked up at Basil with the most pitiable expression imaginable. “I’ll give you all my wives! I have four others stashed away in other rooms!”
His vampire comrades crossed their arms and looked away in scorn.
Basil raised his halberd in disgust, but found his resolve faltering. Executing someone so pitifully begging for his life felt wrong; even an undead Brit.
“Boss,” Bugsy said upon noticing Basil’s unease. His eyes shone with malice. “I will do it for you, if you can’t.”
“Are you sure?” Basil asked. His friend’s anger disturbed him greatly. Bugsy was usually the group’s calmest member, always kind and friendly. “This is not like you.”
“You’ve said it before Boss.” Bugsy glared at the vampire. “Sometimes fire and brimstone really are the solution.”
Kalki stood in the volcanipede’s path. “I vote to spare him.”
“You can’t be serious,” Basil protested.
“Killing someone on his knees corrupts the soul,” Kalki replied. “What did you say of Benjamin Leroy? That he can’t turn his unlife around if he’s dead?”
When he put it this way… Basil had spared Benjamin Leroy, who had committed far worse crimes than running a castle full of bloodsuckers. On the other hand, Basil couldn’t bring himself to see the vampire count as redemption material. ‘Count Varney’ was false, cowardly, and without an ounce of dignity nor self-respect. He was the forgotten lovechild of Grima Wormtongue and Cruella, a human-shaped shitstain without any good quality Basil could discern.
“He could be useful to us,” Shellgirl pointed out. “If he really wants to live, we can always recruit him and his bimbos.”
“What?” Bugsy asked, incensed. The female vampires glared at Shellgirl, but wisely kept their mouths shut. “You would sully the HRA’s reputation with these… these craven leeches?”
“I mean, he’s a monster,” Shellgirl replied with a shrug. “If they join the Guild, Partner’s Tamer Perks will make sure they can’t back out or stab us in the back. They would be more useful to us alive than dead… or deader. Besides, I don’t think we’ll get good loot from someone so weak.”
Basil exchanged a glance with Vasi. She nodded in support, albeit reluctantly. “Shellgirl has a point,” she said. “He’s pitiful, but he’s still level 50. He could help make this dungeon a long-term shelter for locals.”
“I’m tempted to let him live just to watch him squirm,” Plato said with a snort.
“Alright, fine!” Basil pointed his halberd at the count’s head. “Relinquish the dungeon, join my Guild as an intern, turn this place into a safe haven for everyone, and I’ll spare your miserable unlife.”
“Oh thank you!” The vampire count threw himself at Basil’s ankle. “Thank you, Master!”
“Don’t touch me!” Basil recoiled from the vampire’s dirty hands. “Don’t ever touch me!”
“Don’t worry, Boss.” Bugsy glared darkly at Eddie. “I will give him a hazing he shall never forget.”
----------------------------------------
As predicted, the dungeon swiftly healed its wounds. The walls that the Gehenna Cannon had vaporized rose again in less than an hour, alongside its mighty towers, banquet halls, and sprawling rooms.
The dungeon turned out to follow a standard castle’s architecture, so the stables were large enough to house both Rosemarine and the Steamobile. Although Basil’s crew had slaughtered almost all the monsters inside it, a few dozen had survived the purge and sworn loyalty to the Homeowner Revenge Association. They would make a fine defense for the dangers to come.
As for Eddie, he ended up forced to carry stones around like the most menial thrall in the world. Bugsy burned his ass with his breath each time the vampire appeared to find a moment of peace. “Work!” The volcanipede shouted loud enough to make stones tremble. “Work! WORK!”
This conquest had been nothing more than an appetizer. A message from the System soon gave the team a run-down of what to expect.
> Congratulations, Players of Earth! You have survived long enough to reach the [Christmas] yearly event!
> Much like [Halloween] beforehand, [Christmas] event is a pseudo [Incursion] where rare, winter-themed monsters will hunt the naughty and reward the nice with gifts on Christmas Night. Everyone over ten is considered naughty by default, but they will become nice if they survive the night.
> Dismaker Labs hopes that you will survive to collect your reward! The event will begin after nightfall!
A countdown appeared on Basil’s Status Screen, indicating the hours left before the bloodiest Christmas in human history. They had plenty of time to prepare.
“Everyone over ten?” Plato asked, who wasn’t that old. “I’m safe!”
“But I’m not even one year old,” Shellgirl said with greedy eyes. “Does it mean I get a free gift?”
The answer was always the same.
> Dismaker Labs wishes you a happy apocalypse!
Basil figured they would find out the hard way, as usual.
“You look troubled,” he told Kalki as they surveyed the castle’s outer walls and defenses. Their new undead followers worked to remove the remaining stakes and corpses around the moat. “Is something on your mind?”
The bard nodded sharply and crossed his arms. He looked at the bright afternoon sky. “I detected something in the air, my friend. Something foul.”
“Ashok? Maxwell?” Basil asked. These two surviving members of Metal Olympus had the means to track them down anywhere and he knew better than to expect a Christmas truce. An already deadly event would be the perfect time for an ambush. “Something else?”
“I’m not sure,” Kalki admitted. “An evil presence has had its eyes on us for a while. Perhaps since Paris. It was barely an ill feeling at the edge of my mind, but it’s gaining in strength rapidly. I can’t quite explain it.”
“One of your godly powers, perhaps?” Basil guessed. “I mean, you’re the Avatar of Vishnu. You must be more attuned to the System than anyone.”
“I wish I had any power over it.” Kalki shook his head grimly. “Let us prepare well, my friend. I have the feeling this Christmas event will be the least of our problems tonight.”