Joe trailed off when the page seemed to suddenly react. What happened? How…? Joe watched with a bit of excited glee as he saw what felt like magic working before his eyes, once again. Magic! Magic! WOOO! The page finally settled, the image seemingly forming on the page from random locations and growing outwards. The map quickly filled in and Joe squinted until he quickly realized he was looking at a map of the first floor, the safe zone, exit, and entrance to the next floor clearly depicted at the bottom and top respectively. In the bottom right corner, a small figure and throne appeared with a label describing it as the goblin king’s throne. So. Definitely the first floor, but why did it suddenly show the first floor. Is it only going to show … wait!
Joe spoke quietly, excitement curling in his stomach, “Second floor.”
The map quickly erased and was replaced with what was essentially identical to the first floor, except the bottom right corner no longer showed the goblin throne or goblin king’s area. Huh… no proof it’s any different, but…
“Third floor.”
The map once again faded out and then in in the same manner as the other two times, once again showing an identical layout as the first and second floor, albeit missing the goblin king. Time to see if it’s really doing what I’m thinking.
“Fourth floor.”
This time, the map faded out and in but only described a small area, showing the entrance to the fourth floor at the south or bottom, heh, edge of the page and a long semi-winding corridor that dumped them in the middle of the page with the map showing two paths leading mostly north. Well, that sucks. Guess it only shows what we’ve explored. But finding the way through the labyrinth is now simple. Still, let’s see…
“Fifth floor.”
The map erased the fourth floor and then did nothing, showing only a blank sheet. Huh. Guess we aren’t allowed to cheat. Heh. Joe’s smirk was self-mocking and he quickly told the map to display the fourth floor and showed it to the three kids. Not kids… Joe sighed at his own blunder but cleared his mind to focus on the showing them the map. The explanation went easy enough and after all three had taken and used the map themselves, Joe led the way out. Time to take only right turns! Joe snickered to himself.
The labyrinth turned out to be one of the most boring experiences of his life. The thing was empty. Devoid of life, loot, or excitement in any form. It wasn’t exactly ugly as the walls were worked with some form of simple texture and the look was that of a deliberately constructed sapient construction. Light sources hung from the roof in the form of very simple candle chandeliers. Joe didn’t think much of them, but when he glanced at one that was close at hand, just overhead, he ended up doing a double take to look more carefully. His first impression had been wrong, as while the chandeliers did look like it was creating light using an open flame on a candle, Joe found no candles anywhere, and the flame literally floated in air above the points around the chandelier where a candle or a light would have normally been mounted. The flames seemed to simply come into existence in midair, centered directly over a spike that pointed directly up with the flame dancing above the spike almost as if the spike was a wick itself. He took a moment to stop and inspect the chandelier, looking at it closely before he finally let it go and moved on. However, the chandelier worked, the light and heat were real, and the flame seemed to be nothing more than that and identical to what a candle would have produced. Although… it looks like nobody has to come in and change the candles. Nice!
Joe left the chandelier behind and returned to exploring the maze and realized that if he didn’t have the map, he might have felt slightly anxious at trying to find a way out. Even then, he would have simply drawn the map in his notebook as best he could, the result would have been the same: an easy way out for him to follow on paper. Despite boredom setting in, Joe maintained his caution at each corner, and quickly began filling in the map.
One nice thing Joe found was that if they reached a dead end, Joe only had to look around the corner, and the map drew as far as his eyes could see. There were a few times that he almost turned around to leave, assuming a dead end, when the map actually showed a small break in the walls revealing a path. He would then head up and follow that path to its end and soon had most of the bottom right corner filled in. They had reached the edge of the right wall, or at least it appeared to be so, when they finally came to the last stretch of corridor to be revealed on the map for the bottom right quadrant. Looks like this is a dead end. We’re trapped by all the other corridors around us, unless we go over or under them…
Joe almost turned back but decided to reveal the last corridor for completeness sake, coming up on the second to last corner before stopping in surprise, brought up short as he realized that the wall on one side ended sooner than its opposite, creating a room about the size of two hallways wide. In the center, floated a spark, its buzzing electrical arcs spitting around its body randomly. Huh. Didn’t think there would be a spark here, but it’s easy enough.
You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.
Joe looked back to the other three, seeing the siblings leaning heavily against the wall, not exactly exhausted by quite tired. Right, low endurance. Maybe take a break? Kill the spark and raise my clubs at the same time? They can take a break?
Joe flipped out his cudgels and started walking towards the spark, “Why don’t you guys take a break. I’ll kill this thing. Unless… you want to help?” Joe asked a bit facetiously. He really didn’t expect them to help.
Joe took a few moments before looking back, noticing that the three had stayed back, with Zilnek and Kilniara showing fear and Garnedell a great deal of caution.
“What’s wrong?”
“Master. That’s not a spark. That’s at least a great spark, or maybe a master spark.”
“Garnedell” Joe sighed in exasperated warning at Garnedell’s use of ‘master.’
Garendell flushed before responding, “Sorry… Joe.”
“Right. It’s OK. Now, then… you’re saying this is a higher level monster… spark? Is it a two or three core monster?”
“It’s two or three core. I don’t know.”
“But definitely not one core?”
“Definitely not.”
“Hmm,” Joe considered to himself for a few moments, “Well, you guys should probably stay back. Garnedell, how sure are you it’s a three core?”
“I don’t think…”
“It can’t be a master spark… three core, master.”
Joe quickly glanced back at Kilniara, “What’s that?”
“It can’t be a three core. A beginner’s dungeon cannot have three cores in it. It can only have two cores if they are optional bosses. The bosses of a dungeon are always one or two core. This must be an optional boss.”
“Ooh. Thanks Kilniara. Yeah. Two core then… I should be fine,” Joe nodded to himself as he started advancing on the spark again. “Oh. And Kilniara. No ‘master,’ please!” Joe sighed as he wished that he’d brought some of his star weapons. Oh well…
Joe heard a muffled ‘yes’ from an obviously embarrassed Kilniara behind him but he’d long since settled his mind, dropping into a blank focus, extraneous ideas no longer pressing in on his thoughts as they were trapped behind a bubble separating survival from intellect.
Pretty bright. No dark corners. Moving pretty slow, still not focused on me. No other dangers. Floor clear. Ceiling clear. Walls out of range. His body rolled, movement rolling up and around his shoulders, down his arms, then ending at his wrists and neck as he twirled his cudgels and rolled his neck. The movement trailed down his waist, thighs, then calves and ankles.
Settle. Legs bent. Center down. Side on, reduce target. Slide forward, feet grounded. Focus. Joe’s eyes darted, flickering around the spark, noticing the flickering short range discharges of electrical brilliance, but nothing screamed the thing was about to attack. However, the thing began to spin and started heading towards him. Got a forward. So it has got a back. Joe noted, continuing to advance slowly. The electrical sparks stabbing off the body seemed to intensify, then suddenly unify, the sparks melding into one, flowing towards each other and pointing directly at him. Not good, retreat!
Joe leapt back instantly and the spark seemed to teleport directly on to where he had been standing, the stab of electricity stopping just short of him. Teleport, three meters. Safe distance, four. Caution, may need more. Joe cataloged the information instantly, almost without thought, even as he leapt forward and his two cudgels whipped through the body of the spark, a whining surge of electricity piercing his ears as his cudgels passed through the body. Its sparks continued their random discharges and Joe quickly slipped to the side, his strikes still hammering through the spark’s body. It began turning, but seemed to be slower to turn than Joe could slip around to its side, so he kept slipping around it, hoping it would have some kind of effect.
Joe soon had himself positioned, what he thought, was behind it, and he whaled away on it for several moments before the thing started to whine ominously, a charge growing in volume and pitch. Incoming, prepare. The thing’s electrical discharges suddenly took on a brighter and bluer tinge even as Joe leapt backwards away from it. It still slowly turned but was still with its back mostly towards Joe when the little lightening blasts suddenly converged on one another, pointing rapidly towards Joe once again.
Teleport. Attack? Three / four meter safe distance. Impossible. Second option, dodge. Turning clockwise, dodge with turn; left!
Joe leapt to the left, aiming for caution, diving and hitting the ground shoulder first as he tucked into a roll, hoping to create as much distance as possible. The thing teleported once again, its electrical discharge only traveling about a meter to land directly on top of where he had been standing only moments ago before it’s body suddenly seemed to appear directly where he had been standing at torso height.
Teleport distance controlled. Can dodge laterally.
Joe quickly leapt forward to close the distance and his cudgels once again began to dance. Joe found the fight simplistic and repetitive as the spark fought like a beast; without thought and with immediacy. One aspect that cause Joe no little trouble was the lack of resistance from his strikes. He was used to his strikes thudding into the target or rebounding. This changed his tactics and moves as the strikes would then require a change of direction as normally, the attack would rebound his weapon or require him to withdraw and start another strike. With the sparks incorporeal body, his strikes passed right through the spark, still doing damage, but not actually striking anything so required a change in the way he attacked.
He found the answer soon enough as he shifted into the mindset of simply practicing his forms with the more grandiose flourishes. Fancy moves that were often useless in a fight, but were now, incredibly, powerfully effective as he was now able to swing his weapon through around and back to attack while maintaining the original momentum. His masters had always ridiculed the flourishes, but as a naïve preteen and young teen, he’d been caught up in the showmanship as much as legitimate fighting. He hadn’t used these movements in years, but the physical practice he’d had all his life brought back the moves quickly and easily, and he soon fell into a series of movements that ended up being incredibly effective, bringing his cudgels through the body of the spark multiple times each second. Joe settled into the fight. It was going to take a while.
* * *