Chapter Two Hundred and Twenty-One - The Dread Cute-ulu

The room was similar to Jim’s castle. Walls of bricks and stones all around, a fairly low ceiling, and light coming from sconces on the walls where glass bulbs were filled with mushrooms and padded glow-moss.

It filled the grey halls in pale yellow and green light, steadier than a flame’s.

The room opened up ahead of us, the corridor not so much ending as widening out. The "ceiling" was also the floor of a mezzanine over our heads, and above that was another mezzanine, and so on up to a height of four stories.

It was about hip-high, and made entirely of stone. One big slab, as thick as my hand-span, made up the top, with a smoothed surface on which a box sat.

Past the altar was a hole cored in the center of the floor. Just a big hole, maybe five metres in diameter. It took a ripple across the surface for me to realize that the hole was filled almost to the brim with water.

Pillars circled the room. Stone, with roughly carved tentacles or maybe just really thick vines running around them. They were pretty impressive.

“The usual pattern is one more altar for every floor,” Howard said, his voice kept low, and yet still bouncing across the room.

“So, one here, two on the next floor up?” Amaryllis asked. She was looking to the side, and following her gaze revealed a staircase in the corner. There was another in the opposite corner. The entire room was square on the edges, with nothing offering any cover except for the pillars here and there.

“That’s it,” Howard said. “Should only be four floors up.”

I stepped forwards, walking way around the altar and to the edge of the big hole. The water was brackish and dark; I couldn’t see more than a few centimetres into it, but it looked deep. Gazing up, I could make out the floors above, each one with a similar hole in the centre, though the hole was about a metre wider for every level.

Something jangled, and I stepped back, then I noticed the chains. Big things, with loops big enough that I could fit my fist through them. They were near the pillars lining the edge of the hole, probably why I’d missed them.

“How do we break the altars?” Awen asked, her voice rising in the end when the chains started making more noise.

Howard shifted his shoulders. “Even if they look like stone, they're not so tough. A good smack right in the middle ought to break the stone. You’ve got a hammer, right?”

“Oh, right,” Awen said. “I can do that.”

The chains started to rattle louder, then then went taut.

The altar gurgled, and when I turned to look, there was a small rivulet of water running out from the base of the altar, down a little channel dug into the floor, and into the hole. A moment later, more water started to drip down from above. The altars on the other floors?

“It’s coming,” Howard said.

I stepped back to be closer to my friends. “Right, get ready, I guess. Remember not to look into its eyes.”

“I’ll go up now,” Awen said. “I can start with the altars on the top floor; there should be more of them, right?”

“Right,” I said. I glanced at Howard to see if he had any objections, but he didn’t protest the idea.

Awen paused. “Oh, give me your packs, quick, I’ll hide them on the top floor.”

That was a great idea, so we all quickly took off our packs and soon we could hardly see Awen’s head under all the backpacks and such. I think she started regretting her generosity as soon as she reached the first staircase, but it had been a nice gesture, and a nicer idea. I felt a bit lighter without a few kilos of stuff on my back.

“Ready?” I asked.

“Aye.”

“As ever, I suppose.”

“Yes.”

The chains lifted, super slowly at first, then a bit faster, and with that rising, the water on the edge of the hole rose too. It hit the brim, then poured over and started to form a big puddle in the middle of the room.

Experimentally, I pushed my Cleaning aura on and let it mingle with the water moving towards my sneakers. It washed away the brownness of it. Just dirty water, then?

Something moved out of the surface of the hole, at first just a fin, but then the rest of a round, blubbery head emerged, oily skin pulled taut around a minivan-sized skull.

I gasped as the face came out of the water. Half of it was twisted and misshapen, with large green roots digging into the face where one of the boss’s eyes should have been.

The boss continued to rise along with its platform, long tentacled face moving past until, finally, it stopped with its huge, very goat-like feet level with the ground.

“Break the altar!” Howard said.

The boss screamed.

You have heard the plea of a primordial creature of chaos! Your mind is shaken.

“What?” I asked.

I saw Howard stumble ahead, then fall onto all fours with a splash.

That was... bad. I had to help him. But I... I shook my head, the fog lifting and my mind clearing.

My Cleaning aura! I blasted it out, spending a good dozen points of magic so that the Cleaning magic would slam into my friends. Amaryllis gasped, then bent down to pick up her dagger-wand--when had she dropped that?--Bastion just grunted. “Could have told us about that one,” he said.

“Didn’t expect it,” Howard said. “The altar!” He stumbled ahead, climbing to his feet and rushing to the big stone. He lifted the little box on the surface, then brought it crashing back down with a heavy grunt.

The stone top of the altar shook, and when he slammed the box back down, the entire thing cracked.

With a third and final blow, the altar-stone broke in half, and I felt a wave of some sort of greasy magic wash past.

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A fountain of water erupted from the base of the altar, pushing up and splattering against the broken stone top. It reminded me of seeing a fire-hydrant that had been hit, only not nearly as strong. Still, if it kept going, and with the room already filling with water...

“Broccoli, go check on Awen, everyone, second floor. Amaryllis, let loose with everything you have as soon as we’re clear,” Bastion said.

“Right!” I called back.

I bounced off, first jumping to the top of the stairs, then once there I used the back wall to bounce back up onto the second floor. I could see the boss’s waist here, his big potbelly blubbering in place. Two altars, just like Howard has said, one on either side of the boss.

Ignoring all that for the moment, I bounced up another floor even as my friends ran up the stairs.

The third floor was equally empty, with an altar behind the boss, and one on either side. The floor was also, I noted, a fair bit smaller than the one below. More of a balcony, maybe.

The fourth floor, when I arrived, was little more than a passage all the way around the hole and the third floor, with an altar at every corner.

I saw our bags tucked away next to a closed door by the back, probably the exit. And right next to the edge, shuffling forwards with wide eyes, was a terrified Awen.

“Awen!” I shouted before darting forwards. She was trembling even as she walked towards the boss, her eyes fixed on its one good eye below. This floor was only just even with the top of the boss’s head.

I tackled her, pulling her back from the edge even as I pushed as much Cleaning magic out as I could in a short, hard burst.

Awen gasped. “B-Broc!”

“Awen! Are you okay?”

She shook her head. “I... yes? I was... confused, but I was fighting it. It was... urgh.” She pressed a hand to her forehead. “I didn’t like it.”

“Hey, it’s okay now,” I said.

Awen nodded and pulled back. “I’ll do the altars here.”

“Are you--”

She nodded harder, flashing me a smile. “I’m not going to be useless.”

“Alright,” I said. “In that case, I’ll get back to the fight.” And just as I finished saying that, the room lit up in brilliant blues and whites as Amaryllis let loose with her lightning magic. The boss groaned and shifted back, then it ducked down, one of its arms punching out ahead.

“The altars!” Awen said. “It’ll weaken it!”

I nodded, then let her go. She’d do her part; I couldn't let my trust in her falter now.

Spade in hand, I eyed the boss, then backed up a little bit. I doubted fire magic would do much against someone all wet like that, and its skin looked thick enough to make the magic kinda weak anyway. Fire magic, while cool and flashy, wasn’t all that good at killing, just hurting.

So manual labour it was!

I roared as hard and loud as I could while I jumped down, my spade held up way above my head with both hands wrapped hard around the handle.

The boss started to glance up just as I brought the warspade down, a bit of stamina spent on my arms making the blow that much faster.

It banged into the boss’s head with a resounding bong that made my arms shiver, then I crashed into the monster feet-first and launched myself backward in a quick somersault that had me landing on the third floor.

A crack from above, followed by one of the little rivulets of water turning into more of a deluge announced the breaking of one of the topmost altars. Awen hard at work, then.

The boss spun to face me, so I darted away, using one of the pillars as cover for a moment. Cover, and a place to insight the boss from.

Cute-ulu, the Psyche Flayer, level 10.

Cute? The boss didn’t look cute at all. Sure, it had big eyes, and little tentacles, and it was kinda stout looking, but just because it looked like a forty-foot-tall baby didn’t mean that it was cute!

The level was also strange. Lower than Jim had been. Then again, Jim was a mini-boss that could be avoided by talking, maybe the dungeon got to get stronger monsters if they were easier to bypass or something? It made sense, in a weird sort of game-y logic. And even with the level difference, Cute-ulu looked a whole lot tougher and stronger already.

A second altar broke above, redoubling the amount of water raining down.

“Quick!” I heard Bastion call from below.

“Don’t get your pretty sylph panties knotted up!” Amaryllis shouted back.

Before I could even begin to wonder what all that was about, the room filled with noise as Amaryllis let loose another barrage of electrical magic that rammed into the boss mid-chest.

I nodded. Amaryllis was doing great!

A crack sounded from below, and the splashing noises increased. So they’d broken another altar.

So far, things were going pretty well.

I created a set of nine fireballs, even if I knew they’d be less effective, then ran out of my cover on a direct path to the nearest altar.

The boss turned my way, and I let loose, flinging all nine balls right towards its face.

It blinked, flinching back from the magic that flew towards its remaining eye.

On reaching the altar, I hopped up, landed on it, then pounded both feet down as hard as I could.

The rock below me cracked. Another hit, then.

I looked up on seeing a shadow, then eeped and ducked a wild swing from one of the boss’s face-tentacles.

The huge prehensile limb crashed into the altar, bursting through as it tried to grab at me.

Fortunately, I was a quick little bun, and I was out of there before it could do anything more than sabotage its own altar.

“Right, don’t underestimate the giant monster boss,” I muttered.

I had to take this seriously too!

***