Cal watched as Helga left the wounded Hurricane and jumped onto a column. The barbarian then leapt onto the circular platform. She sped toward the cracked marble pedestal, crowbar raised to smack Amorfo’s blue gem into a thousand pieces.
Amorfo wormed his way onto the central platform, where he rolled back and forth, arms still pasted to his body. “Hey! Get away from my core gem! Are you crazy? You can’t kill me! For one thing, the Vanilla Master would be so mad if you did. She has this Vengeance thing and we’re going to save the Tree of Souls.”
“She?” Gwen shouted. “Wait. The Vanilla Master is a she? Helga, stop. Don’t crack his core. We need him!”
Helga paused, frowning, her eyes going to the wounded Hurricane on a ledge across the way.
Cal jumped from pillar to pillar to get to the central marble platform. This was their chance to get more info on the Vanilla Master. “What do you know about her?”
Most of Amorfo’s head was covered in colorful paper, and his head snakes were trying to bite through, but they ended up coughing on the varnish. His handsome lips were exposed though. He laughed. “I know she’s awesome. I know she’s super mad at something someone did. And I know that she’s probably on her way up here now because I’m obviously her favorite.”
“Who is she?” Cal asked. “And wouldn’t that make her your mistress?”
“Don’t be sexist!” Amorfo said. ‘Seriously. The Vanilla Master doesn’t like the double S in the words ‘mistress’ and ‘goddess.’ She gets super upset by them.”
“But who is she?” Cal asked. “What’s her real name?”
Amorfo grimaced, showing teeth. “I really can’t tell you. I mean, that’s part of her whole mysterious antagonist thing she has going on.”
Gwen was using Hemp to pull Kronke’s stone body out of the water. Even with Dave’s help, it was a chore. The pair then gently retrieved the wounded Hurricane and set the brave battle goat next to the stone troll.
Soon they were all on the central platform.
The Dudusa was smirking. “So now what?”
Helga bent down and yelled right into Amorfo’s face. “Ye’re gonna tell us everything ye know, fool, or I’m going to smash yer guardian form into meat, and then I’m going to smash yer core gem into dust, and that’s all that’ll be left of ye. Dust and meat!”
Gwen yelped. “Tell us when you’re going to scream like that. Or was that your Scared Straight Scream?”
Amorfo blinked. “Wow. Hey. So, you just gelled in my face. Not stool, man. Not stool.”
Gelled? Stool? Cal didn’t know what that meant.
Helga leaned back. “But are you still working for the Vanilla Mistress?”
“She skates that word. Wait, not skates. Hates. She was my Vanilla Disaster, but not anymore. She used my favorite cologne, Dragon’s Dusk Musk, which comes in away, but also a dream. I even have the Dragon’s Dusk Musk ordinance. Works super good. And the baby chickens love it.”
The halfling threw Cal a questioning look. “Do you understand any of that nonsense?”
Amorfo shrieked, “What did you guys do to my wording? Me not word good no more! Deodorant! Dragon Dusk Musk deodorant! Oh, the humanity!”
Helga grinned. “Not sure if that’s from the potpourri pendant magic, or me own spell, but I find it rather amusing.” Then she caught herself. She grabbed Amorfo’s chin. “Ye turned Kronke to stone, villain. Tell me ye can turn him back into flesh and blood.”
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Amorfo frowned. “I did that to the big pie? Wow. Anyone else would be gone five-ever. I mean, stone, blight? But holes have that regeneration ability. It might take a stitch, but eventually he’ll get his own toddy back.” The Dudusa moaned. “Oh, my talk crow sad wow.”
Cal felt so relieved. Kronke should be able to regenerate his body from stone back into flesh. But how long would it take?
Amorfo glanced around. “Speaking of holes, where’s Inke?”
“We have him trapped,” Dave said. He then coughed. “It looks like we’ve won the third level, so now we have three out of the five Celestial Nodes.”
Another cough followed. The Spidercrat’s color wasn’t good, and he’d bandaged himself with his webs, but he barely had the strength to dig another Omega Audit Crystal out of his pocket. He gently retrieved Amorfo’s gem from where it floated over the cracked marble pedestal and replaced the core gem with the OAC.
In seconds, Dave was looking better as he took control of the third node. The room remained the same, however, which shouldn’t be the case. However, the entire level had been created around the newly formed Celestial Node. Things were bound to be strange.
A message flashed in Cal’s eyes.
<<<>>>
Basic Dungeon Meld activated. Dave’s body got busted up pretty good in that last fight, and he might need your help. Meld away. Three whole Celestial Nodes! It’s amazing the power you have now!
<<<>>>
Dave slipped Amorfo’s core gem into a pocket in his black suit coat and then popped a Blackberry into his mouth. “This is David Sterling Copperblade, a.k.a Weavelord, and I have a message for Ji-Soo of the Arcandor Initiative. Audit Team Six and I have secured the third Node. We have freed Amorfo Deuce from the Vanilla Master’s mind-control spell, and we’ll now secure the area, and make our way down to the fourth floor.”
Ji-Soo’s voice echoed around them. “Oh my gosh, that’s super good news, but are you feeling the fluctuating powers down there? So much fluctuating. A metric ton of fluctuations! We were about to NUKE you guys, but oh my gosh. Three nodes. Wait. You’re on the third level? Uh, are you seeing anything weird?”
Gwen had retrieved the shrimp blimp, though her gadget now looked water-logged and useless. who was using Hemp to drag Kronke’s stone body out of the water. He then looked down at the decoupaged gorgon laying on the ground. “She’s going to have to be far more specific.”
Suddenly, the smell of a vanilla candle filled the air.
The boiling water was being drained from the room, and at first, it was hard to tell where it was going. Then Cal saw that there was a crack in the wall across from the copper doors of the entrance. The crack was getting wider.
Of course there would be a secret door because the steps down to the fourth level had to be somewhere near Amorfo’s inner sanctum. Why hadn’t Cal been looking?
As the last of the water drained away, over twenty giant centaurs broke into the inner sanctum. They were beefy men with rippling muscles and faces that were mostly hidden by ridiculously large moustaches. They were dressed—both man part and horse part—in tight fitting clothes and smelled vaguely of eucalyptus and mint massage oil. Were those Barb’s centaur masseuses?
With them swirled some kind of air elemental—that was where the vanilla was coming along with a cinnamon apple smell. These weren’t just air elementals; these were perfume elementals. With them were hulking men made of mud. Were they mud men or mud elementals or some kind of unholy mixture of both?
A whole army of enemy soldiers had come in through the secret door.
They were the minions of the one dungeon core that Cal thought he could trust. Barbara Starmyst, the flakey interior decorator from the AT1. Suddenly, the picture all came clear to Cal. He didn’t know all of Barb’s powers, but her aromatherapy was well-known.
Barb, herself, came stomping into view. She glanced to her left and then to her right. She was a Night Centaur, though a rather small one, about the size of a Shetworld pony. She wore the same flowery peasant blouse that Cal had seen before, when she’d used her Aromatic Arts to contact him. That had all been a ruse to pump him for information, probably about the DUDE executive, who had stopped Ji-Soo from NUKEing them right away.
Barb had gauzy scarves around her legs and tied around her head, where her hair was braided and decorated with flowers. It was clear she didn’t have a potpourri pendant because she didn’t need one. In her hand was a huge spear, no, not a spear, but a spear-sized stick of incense.
She waved it around, and Cal felt himself getting light-headed. They needed to get out of there, and fast, but Barb and her retinue of huge centaurs and perfume elementals and mud elementals blocked their exit.
Cal wasn’t seeing how those big mustached muscled centaurs, the perfume elementals, and the mud men matched with the Night Centaur Aromatherapist. What was the cohesive theme there?
Probably didn’t matter. They were all about to die. At least they’d know who was behind their fate. But that still didn’t tell them who the mysterious tenth core was.
Cal was sad he’d go to his grave not knowing.