Black goblin blood ran in thick rivulets down the walls, pooled upon the floor around the body. Whatever had killed it had carved through the greenskin with two mighty strokes, one decapitating the goblin and dismembering its right arm; the other slicing through ribs and spine to rip the unfortunate creature in half. From the arc of the spray, the way the eviscerated goblin's parts fell upon themselves I could tell it had been ambushed from above. I could determine it was large, powerful and strong. I could not see it.
I concentrated my light upon the slaughter, the body swiftly turning to mana and returning to me but I felt nothing. I found no purchase upon an invader's form, no footprints in the dust, nothing at all. Argent leaped to her feet in front of me, sensing my fear. The other goblins continued oblivious, all unknowing. Something was in me, something roamed my halls, had slaughtered one of my minions in a heartbeat and I could not see it.
"INVADER!" I roared, my voice bellowing in the ear of every minion. My two warriors overturned barrels of sand and vinegar to spill mail yet rusty onto the stone, hurrying to don their armour. Exploring scavengers started, jumping high into the air or tripping over themselves in their haste. Matron Croaker leapt from her bed, already charging her first consort to bar the door, dress, find the enemy, a dozen orders all contradictory. Argent drew her seax, fidgeting nervously and flexed the fingers of her free hand, ready to cast.
Yet I remained oblivious to the foe even as a second goblin was slain. He tumbled to the ground, a huge weight slamming into the tiny biped. He was dead before he hit the floor, twenty three bloody holes appearing almost simultaneously across his back and limbs, bursting through his narrow frame. His head crumpled inwards, crushed by two opposing forces from either side and devoured. The invader had many limbs, some sort of insect with crushing mandibles. I focused my light upon the scene, only succeeding in catching an impression of scuttling legs and oscillating jaws from the viscera sliding seamlessly from its limbs.
Whatever the creature was its body seemed to absorb all light, utterly failing to reflect any back to me. My only glimpse of it was from the reflected gore of my slaughtered minion, an impression made too briefly for even that would not stick to it. I consumed the body, bloody, bone and flesh turning to glimmering emerald mana. I had to replenish my reserves, could not afford to allow the fallen to be buried or commemorated. I had been creating constantly, fourteen goblins including Argent and the Matron, assembling my holdings into a semblance of order, creating mushrooms and soil...I was nearly spent. Worse, the upkeep of my minions had more than halved my regeneration even with the discount of being Schema creations. I would have to fight this butcher somehow -
Both farmers were slaughtered in seconds, bisected and ripped limb from limb. They had spotted the interloper and tried to run to no avail. I absorbed the first before he could even slide from the enemy's claws, the second was not so lucky. The creature seemed to dive through her, her stomach seeming to explode apart rather than be cut through. She fell in two torn halves, legs punctured by stabbing needle-like legs or feet. Her top half scrabbled for purchase on segmented carapace, the enemy long and undulating with its scrabbling movement. Her lifeblood and entrails gave me my most detailed view yet of the enemy. Its shell was layered over a thick, flat body from which sprang over a hundred articulated legs, short upper segments ending in long spikes. A longer forelimb seemed to impact her, tearing loose her hold and sending her sprawling to the ground.
She was screaming, I realised. I gave what mercy I could, growing a thin spike of stone through her brainstem. Her remains boiled to glimmering green motes soon after.
I needed more information, pouring more focus and mana into the hallway. The drain was enough to push me into the negatives, losing mana like a wounded prey animal lost blood. Even now I could not see it but I was learning to see it's absence, to determine where my light reflected dimly from around and beneath it, rather than directly upon a surface. I conjured a thick wall of resin, letting it crash down upon the invader. I had hoped the thick, sticky substance would slow it down but if it slowed at all it was negligible. In short seconds it tore itself free, thick sap wicking from it's carapace like light from a mirror. Those seconds were enough.
It was horrifying. Over four meters in length, two elongated and oversized forelimbs raised above it's body ready to dismember my servants. It's tail bore clamping pincers, its head was eyeless, suppurating nostrils flaring in lines between the layers of thick crest plates. Two long antennae tasted the air, arching back from it's skull where one would expect eyes, more jittering, twitching lengths from it's prow. A huge ravening maw lined with flat molars hung jawless, four crushing mandibles flanking it. They were tensed like it's scythe-like forelimbs, ready to attack.
My warriors entered the hall, too little, far too little. Their spearpoints shook from fear, bronze bucklers inexpertly strapped to their offhands failing to angle correctly. Their mail was rusty, loose, over thick cloth tunics instead of gambesons, they wore no helms nor gauntlets or greaves. But they stood, side by side, howling abuse.
I did what little I could think of to help them. The flagstone before them lurched, the rock beneath turned to sand and hollowed so the thick slab formed a short wall for the diminutive fighters. I formed stalactites upon the ceiling, thick and pointed. I strung cloth between them, soaked in resin and twisted, snapped the makeshift javelins to fall to the ground. Torches sprang from the wall to hurl burning charcoal onto a floor suddenly slick with oil.
Stone glanced harmlessly from chitin, sticky cloth was scythed through or churned underfoot. What few legs were bound or tangled simply weren't enough to stop it's gait. Flame spread in front of it, needle feet skittering on burning oil succeeded in sending it crashing to the ground. It slide through fire towards my brave fighters, hooking one spear aside but the other caught it at the shoulder only to ricochet off. The sheer mass and velocity of the beast was too much for my soldiers, even if the dwarven iron could have punctured the carapace. The monster recovered quickly, seeming unfazed by the flame about it as it tore through mail and goblin with equal ease.
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Six dead, half the Sundered Hold Tribe dead in barely a minute. The beast was fast, strong and powerful. The remaining goblins fled down the spiral stairs to my Core with their matron at the head. They weren't fast enough - and even if they were, I had no means to stop it. None at all. I reabsorbed the fallen warriors, sent my light from the carnage through my holdings. I devoured the mushrooms and their rich beds of compost, tore through storerooms of metals and jewels. My meagre mana pool soon returned to full and I threw any obstacle I could think of at my unstoppable doom. Behind the tribe I sealed the stairs shut with a wall of basalt a metre thick, simultaneously dissolving a narrow shaft from a chamber to my right up to where the first victim fell.
That voracious maw slammed into the forming stone, eyeless head turning, teeth oscillating as it's whole body pressed itself against the rock. Some potent acid was spat against it, grinding molars spalling and tearing the weakened slab apart. It had cost me nine mana and bought me barely five seconds. It fell through the hole it had created into a shaft still glimmering with emerald motes onto a rising spike of granite. A spike that shattered.
Stone shards ricocheted, the spike catching the horror along its side and tearing a handful of legs from its body but the carapace held. I felt the stone bite into chitin, scratch a shallow valley across plates I couldn't see. I dissolved stone to soup along the shaft but it merely slowed the monster, I simply hadn't the mana even as I consumed more and more treasure to sustain my efforts. The buglike monster seemed to swim through the mud, scrambling over the lip of the pit in seconds. It caught the tribe just before they left the stairway.
Three goblins were pulverised, the monster crushing into them like a battering ram and impaling their corpses on its spiked feet. A fourth was caught in the mandibles, pulled backwards into the maw of crushing teeth. The fifth turned, to fight or hurl some last defiance none will ever know. A scythe plunged through her face before she could react. Matron Choker was disembowelled and flung into my Core Chamber with such force her guts ruptured against my fountain and fouled the waters.
It entered, invisible to me. It was horrifying. Even at this short distance I could only feel out it's shape by it's absence, interpret it's location by parsing where my light was obscured. Argent described it to me, voice low and rapid, describing its movements and location as she circled, seax in hand. It focused upon me as though mesmerised, as though basking. Its mouth opened and that I saw, saliva glistening from a wet gullet, a cavernous oesophagus that seemed to extend to the very tip of its tail.
Argent's seax plunged into the meat of its throat, launched from her hand with the full force of her magic. Both hands were flung before her, her body frozen in the act of thrusting the weapon. Her fingers curled, arms flexing as though clasping the grip physically and pulled, her whole body trembling as though meeting resistance. The knife tore a deep, gushing wound, ripping sideways into the monster. While I had been frozen, she had seen opportunity. It was the only major wound we had scored so far, blue ichor pouring and a roar so forceful I felt myself vibrate with it.
My castellan's eardrums ruptured, eyes rolling into her skull. Blood leaked from her nose and mouth, the sound of the shrieking beast causing her organs to quake and tremble. Deaf, blind and disoriented Argent tumbled to the ground spasming. It saved her life, the colossal insect retaliating with a stream of acid that would have taken her full in the chest. I raised a dome of stone around her, protecting her from the spattering droplets that hissed and sizzled around my core chamber. Drooling it's own disgusting ichor and acid, it lumbered towards me. The void in my light trailed by a vile stream, closing in, rearing up over my fountain and I was helpless before it.
I threw everything at the beast, I raised spikes of stone and metal, I rained acid, I drew chains and pulled back against it but my magics weren't enough. I couldn't spend mana fast enough to gain any real force, I could slow the monster at this range but my acid was too weak, my spikes too slow, my leverage on the chains insufficient. Its claws scratched the surface of my fountain, tore chunks from the base to spill water across the floor. I summoned serrated wires, threw them into the horror's joints and plates, sawed at it as fiercely as I was able. I could barely draw blood where the wire found flesh, it seemed to toughen wherever I -
Ah. How stupid of me. My minions could see the monster, its body reflected light. It absorbed mana, my arcane light being absorbed the same way my magical creations were now failing. They were too new, too raw, too freshly touched by sorcery and so they were being devoured into the beast which grew stronger, faster, tougher the more I had thrown at it. Even now it grew stronger, pushing inexorably closer to me, claws scrabbling upon the olivine.
Without Argent I would have been doomed. In her stone tomb she cast blindly, her magic knocking herself a hole to breath through. It caught my attention enough I realised she was speaking, a single word over and over.
Far above, on the first floor I melted reinforced steel doors together, on the fourth I cut a block of solid basalt. In my core chamber I formed a pair of bronze winches, threaded them with iron chain and spawned a pair of goblins to turn them. The chain I threw across the monster, just enough to buy me time by artifice or distraction. I had consumed so many of the resources of my shattered realm I was forced to start collapsing rooms. I released the molten sheet I'd so hurriedly smelted, finished with that part of my plan. I tore through the ceiling, grew steel hooks from stone and attached chain to an anchor.
The basalt block fell, caught by the chain to swing into my core chamber it smashed into the monster from the side and sent it hurtling into the neighbouring chamber. The creature sprawled, stunned, carapace cracked and ichor dripping. The void found it's feet, faster than I could have ever imagined possible, unsteady but alive.
One thousand, two hundred and eighteen kilograms of steel shaped to a single blade a meter long and five centimetres wide slammed into the leviathan with the full force of eleven seconds of free fall.
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"Fall," Argent croaked again, hoping the Dungeon would understand, "Fall.."