Rae spent the night at the shrine, in lone vigil over Vuuthas’ sleeping form. She wondered if he’d return to her soon and what he might be up to in Shal’s dream realm. The fight with the Fallen-ranked monster had taken her by surprise but she’d bested it without injury. How would she have tackled it if there had been two? Her [Divine Wave] was her strongest power, draining almost all of her Radiant in one sweeping surge of power. After it was spent, there wasn’t much else she could do but hit things with her weapons, and even then her strength and speed was greatly diminished until she recharged.

Throughout the night, Rae worked on the foundry, creating bits and bobs for the mortals in the courtyard. Rather than creating clothing, she created large bolts of cloth others could cut and sew to their specifications followed by lengths of leather. There was a lack of fine tools so she printed a selection of good, rust-resistant hammers, saws, wrenches, picks, and pliers to hand out. Next, there were cast iron pots for the fires.

Lastly, she printed out blocks of wood and sat on the floor, carving them into animals. There were a number of children in the camps and their toys seemed limited. Once the world was stabilized and she’d activated enough shrines, Rae would be able to introduce horses and elephants to the world. Until then, toy models would have to do.

At dawn’s light, she meditated and then started her deliveries. Rather than distribute them, Rae piled them up outside the temple. The community would be better at deciding who needed what.

“Rae, you’re here!” Dwin said as he padded up to her. “I wondered what happened to you. What was that thing?”

“A corpse blob–a group of twenty-five or so corpses amalgamated together with Necrotic energy and turned into a disgusting giant undead that’s focused on consuming more bodies and growing. I imagine if introduced to a highly populated area, it would quickly swell to be the size of a city. These sorts of things are often necromantic weapons. Because of the square-cube law, they require increasingly high levels of Necrotic to power them so at some point, they’ll split into dozens of smaller versions or simply run out of energy and become a massive rotting mountain.”

Dwin blinked, stunned, spent a few seconds trying to process that, and then gave up. “I’m glad you were here to defend us and are unharmed! In all my years, I’ve never seen such a creature.”

There was a question there, dangling unspoken between them. Why had such a thing suddenly appeared?

Rae chose to ignore it. “I’ll be gone for much of the day as I empty out the nearby dungeon. You said it was where you bring your forsaken? It’s quite a long trek. Do you often have members of the community you sacrifice there?”

Dwin seemed uncomfortable with the question as he answered. “The guards from the tower take them along with the tower’s Forsaken. No one is allowed to come along with them.”

“Then how do you know that they take them to that dungeon rather than killing them out of sight?”

The [Scout’s] eyes widened and Rae could see gears pause and then start clicking rapidly. He’d never doubted what he’d told was the unvarnished truth. “I don’t know… but why would they lie?”

“It’s dangerous out in the wastes. At one time, criminals might have been brought to that spot but maybe they can’t do that anymore.”

“Oh…”

Rae put a reassuring hand on his shoulder. She didn’t blame him for his naivety. There seemed little in the way of formal education or even a sense of history in the camp. All they knew was what they eked from the ground and what the people of the tower told them. Eventually, she’d need to deal with the tower and its occupants but time was something she had in multitudes.

The trip to the dungeon was a short one today. The icy ash now had numerous breaks in the crust where corpses had crawled out and shuffled to the street. The ever-screaming mouth of the dungeon was covered in a slime similar to that of the corpse-blob. It remained liquid despite the cold. Rae ran her fingers over the gunk. Surprisingly, it had no scent. Like the corpse-blob’s vomit, it had a mild life and energy-draining property. Not strong enough to pull Radiant from her core but an unprotected mortal who had to move through it might die before they could exit, or at least be greatly weakened.

The nature of the corpse-blob and its passive effect on the environment was of interest. It suggested intelligent design rather than being the ‘natural’ emanations of a Necrotic buildup. Yet the amount of energy the corpse-blob would require seemed higher than what the dungeon could naturally provide. Perhaps this was something that had laid dormant until Rae had disturbed the area.

Rae manifested a [Wisp] and cautiously moved into the mouth of the screaming giant. The stairs within were wide, but not shallow, providing a curling ramp covered with the cold slime. As she followed the trail downward, Rae looked for signs of life or habitation. The ceiling stayed level even as she went down the steps, quickly disappearing into the darkness.

The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

She would need to keep an eye out for ambushes from above.

The staircase finally ended in a narrow, stone hallway. The air here was freezing and her breath curled in the air. Runes on the door were those of warning to trespassers in the Maker’s language; those who disturbed what lay within or stole would be cursed in life and in death.

Pushing the door open, Rae found herself in a rounded room with writing covering the walls. There were also a number of corpses curled up on themselves. After sending her [Wisp] aloft to make sure nothing lurked on the ceiling, she paused to read. On the left, the marks told the story of a giant named Enokh. He was the son of a Titan and a Maker woman he’d forced himself upon. Enokh had been born hunched and was rejected by his father for his ugliness. He wandered the world, devouring mortals, destroying towns, and fouling the land until he dared defile a serpent temple.

The serpent’s daughters played music for Enokh and plied him with wine. When he slept, the serpent’s sons attacked him with poisoned daggers that made his blood burn. He ran screaming into the hills where he perished. His mother then came and made this place out of his bones.

“A sad end to a sad soul,” Rae murmured.

The rest of the writing was the usual dedication to the Makers and their handiwork as well as ritualistic invocations of the Titans. It was similar to what she’d seen on hundreds of different worlds. Their society was resistant to change and even their newest creations contained praise for those long-imprisoned beings.

The corpses were those of a number of different species: a handful of goblins, some humans and elves, and one or two older orcs. She didn’t touch the corpses but there were no obvious signs of foul play. Perhaps they’d tried to rest here and had their vitality drained, dying in their sleep.

Pushing forward, Rae strode down a short ramp and into an icy slush that went to her knees. The halls appeared to be carved from dark, glossy stone and water dripped from frozen icicles. There was a constant sloshing as the water murmured and rippled rhythmically, moved by an unseen force. Her [Wisp] darted upwards, illuminating a giant spider-like creature with bone-thin legs and clicking mandibles. It dropped as soon as the light touched it. Rae had formed her bracers into a curved, one-handed sword and sliced upwards into its body as it fell–two bodies hit the water, neatly bisected.

Drops of water splashed across her chest and face. Rae licked her lips. There was a strong salty flavor, no doubt minerals leached from the earth, but also a tang like copper and iron. No stagnant or rotting taste, however; the cold, salt, and Necrotic were probably strong enough here that algae or bacteria couldn’t take hold.

Emboldened, she waded further forward. The dungeon had formed into a natural, curving warren, like veins in a body. Sometimes the water reached her knees and other times her hips. Rae ignored the stinging cold and constantly searched with eye and ear for movement.

The next attack happened as she left a narrow passage and entered into a cavern with a deep pool. The walls were pitted with large holes where mummified bodies were interred. Rae edged along the wall, poking at the first body she encountered. It failed to spring up and so she continued. A typical dungeon might wait until she was halfway through to rouse undead guardians or wait until she was almost at the end and had started to relax before slamming shut the exit and springing an ambush.

The ambush came at the halfway point as predicted. Rae felt a great stirring in the water as crouched down as a dozen black, slimy tentacles burst from under the surface. She chopped through the rubbery exterior of the closest one, causing it to jerk and spasm in pain as blood pumped out of it. She had been wrong: something living did dwell here.

Rae dove down, slipping between the tentacles that lashed at where she’d been. They all emanated from a singular spot in the center of the pool, so that was where she wanted to be. The tentacles stilled around her as they realized their prey had eluded them. As Rae had done a moment before, the creature was feeling for movement. But it had already churned up the water and she was able to slip close enough to see the large squid in the depths. It wore a bony structure over its mantle, the ribcage of a larger beast it had grown into, but its head and siphon were still exposed.

A single, red eye opened as Rae turned her weapon into a long trident and kicked hard, giving herself a burst of speed. It twisted to the side, denying her the pleasure of stabbing in that crimson orb but her weapon still pierced deep into the flesh of its head. The squid twisted violently, slamming her with its bone-covered trunk. With nothing to brace against, Rae flew backward through the water and into the air. A moment later, gravity tugged her back down.

The water was black and inky around her. Rae formed a second [Wisp] but its light couldn’t pierce the dark water. Cautiously she circled around, hoping to catch it by surprise by attacking it at a different angle. Around her, the water was curiously still and she encountered no more tentacles. Returning to the center, she found no sign of the squid. She jabbed with her spear at the rocky sand of the pool but didn’t connect to anything solid. Sadly, she did find numerous bones. No doubt more of the Forsaken had met their end here.

Eventually, the ink cleared enough that she found a hole at the bottom. It looked to be far too small for the squid, perhaps a fifth its width, but Rae knew they were slippery creatures and the rib-cage it wore might have enough cartilage to fold into itself.

Should she follow it down? The beast obviously had no taste for prey that attacked back but if Rae followed it to its lair, it would feel trapped and fight more aggressively. She also didn’t know how many of the squids would be down there. At the same time, this might be a faster, easier route through the dungeon.

In the end, it was her curiosity that won out. It's possible this would lead to nowhere but a break from the thought-out routes of the Maker and the dungeon’s genius loci might also lead somewhere interesting. She swam upward and took one last, deep breath, filling her lungs with the stale, freezing air of the tomb. Then Rae kicked down and slipped into the hole followed by her two wisps, into the unknown.