Charlie
“What do you see, Charlie? Is that scary guy with them?” Orb asked.
Charlie held out a hand. “Give me a second, I’m looking!” He clenched his eyes shut. He focused on his sphere of influence and moved his consciousness throughout the dungeon. The walls and rooms of the dungeon rushed by as his mind catapulted forward in search of the invaders. After hearing Orb and Bleedy’s report, he wanted to see this long-haired man himself.
The one known as Arroane.
Charlie noticed the scalers waiting in the shadows. They pressed themselves tight against walls and squeezed into whatever nooks and crannies they could find. Attack and retreat. Wear the cultists down. That was their job. In a battle of attrition, Charlie and his friends would win. When you compared the sheer number of scalers on their side to the group of cultists now approaching, that much was obvious. Besides, they’d faced the cult before. He doubted these guys were much stronger.
Charlie noticed something up ahead, a group of men walking in red robes. He concentrated and his consciousness crawled to a halt. They walked slowly through the dungeon, weapons and hexes raised. The scalers would have already attacked a few times by now. The men were clearly on edge. Charlie raised a single finger for each of the men in the group. It was a struggle to move his actual body while concentrating on his sphere of influence, but the whole point of this was to gather information. “Hey Merlin, how much is this many?” he asked, holding his fingers in the air.
“We really should teach you how to count. There are nine of them based on your fingers,” Merlin answered quickly. “Are you sure that’s all there is? Orb and Bleedy made it seem like there were a lot of them.”
Orb chimed in. “That’s because there were! Maybe our traps got more of them than we anticipated? I bet those idiots walked right into all of them! Oh, do you see a guy with one arm, Charlie?”
“Hmm.” Charlie looked around at each of the men. There was a guy dressed differently than the others at the front of the group, but he had both of his arms still. “No. There is a guy with long brown hair, but he has all of his arms.”
“I guess the man you saw in camp stayed behind. That’s troubling. I’m still wondering if it’s the Arroane we know of,” Vetica said. “Regardless, the other cultists will come looking eventually when their friends don’t come back. Not to mention the fact we can’t stay inside here forever. We’re going to have to face him sooner or later.”
Merlin scoffed. “It can’t possibly be Lord Arroane. People name their children after famous heroes all the time. I bet his parents were just fans and stole it or something. Why would Lord Arroane be working with the cult? That’s nonsense!” he said.
Charlie held a finger to his lips. “Guys, it’s a little hard to focus with everyone talking.”
“Sorry,” Merlin said sheepishly.
Charlie focused back on the cultists. Bleedy and Mousifer’s pit trap was just ahead. Shortly after that, was the first room the cultists would encounter. He’d already seen the scalers waiting. The cultists had no idea what was waiting for them.
The long-haired man stepped over the trap. His men followed his lead. They seemed surprised by it, like they hadn’t expected to see the obvious leaf covering that had tricked Merlin. Charlie imagined Bleedy and Mousifer each leaning forward, waiting on a report of their trap’s success. He didn’t mention it. It might make them sad to know it hadn’t worked.
“John, do you sense that?” The long-haired man asked.
The man next to him shook his head. He was a young, skinny guy with short-cropped auburn hair. Unlike the long-haired man, he was wearing the same robe as the rest of the cultist. “What exactly should I be sensing?” His eyes darted around, looking for any signs of danger.
“An ambush,” the long-haired man said just as they entered the room where the scalers waited.
Charlie’s eyes lit up. His consciousness shot past them into the room. He saw King Scalea and the others waiting. They clung to the ceiling above the door and the walls on either side of it. “They know you’re there!” he warned, projecting his thoughts to the scaler king.
King Scalea roared as the group entered the room. “Arca!” The scalers leapt into action at the command of their leader.
“Diamond Hex Defense!” John screamed in a panic. A barrier rippled along the whole of the group. It repelled the first scaler attack.
“Move inward quickly!” The long-haired man called out. All the cultists followed him into the center of the room, and they formed a circle. The scalers quickly regrouped and surrounded them. Nine cultists against twice as many scalers.
King Scalea brushed his way through the other scalers until he was face to face with the cultists. He stared at the shimmering barrier, studying it for weaknesses. But he didn’t need to find one. John’s hold over the hex gave way.
The barrier disappeared entirely.
“John?” another cultist asked.
John shook his head. “I can’t maintain one of that size for long! We’ve gotta fight!”
The long-haired man smirked.
“Arca!” King Scalea cried out. The scalers leapt again. This time there wasn’t a barrier to rebuff their assault. The resulting fight was chaotic. Charlie’s eyes flickered all over the room, trying to take it all in. The chaos, the flurry of movement, the screams, and shouts, all of them made it hard to get his bearings on the fight.
The cultists tried to hold formation, but the flood of scalers made that impossible. The scalers forced many of them to the ground or away from the group.
One cultist broke off from the others. He ran back into the hallway that would lead him out of the dungeon. A few scalers chased after him. He was so focused on looking at them over his shoulder that he ran right into Mousifer and Bleedy’s trap. The leafy covering gave way, and he plummeted into the pit.
“Your trap worked!”
He heard Bleedy and Mousifer paw-five in the background.
Charlie turned his attention back to the others.
The scalers dragged a few cultists down the hallway that led deeper into the dungeon. The men dug their nails into the ground to resist, to no avail.
Of the remaining cultists, all were fighting except for the long-haired man. The scalers that had touched him writhed on the ground. It was like they were in pain or something. Charlie focused and tried to look closer, but as far as he could tell, none of them appeared injured. Other scalers scurried forward and pulled their injured brethren away from the man. King Scalea growled. “Arh!”
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Charlie had a bad feeling.
The man turned and looked over at a pile of scalers to his left. Charlie noticed the same shimmering effect from before. It had to be that John guy. He was protecting himself with his shield-like hex underneath a small swarm of scalers.
The long-haired man held a hand out and waved it across the group of scalers atop John. An ominous, deathly looking hex formed, and the scalers shrunk back. Some collapsed where they were, others jumped away to get distance from him.
John groaned and released his hex. He brushed the writhing scalers off of him and forced his way to his feet. “Thank you, Lord Arroane.”
Charlie’s heart pounded in his chest. “Lord Arroane…” He shared the thought with his friends.
There was a hand on his shoulder all of a sudden. “Charlie, where did you hear that? Is he here?” The voice, and hand, was Vetica’s.
“It can’t be the same guy! Like I said, he lost a hand!” Orb insisted.
Charlie was in the middle of answering when he saw King Scalea twitch. The scaler king looked angry.
Really angry.
“Arca!” He roared. The other scalers stopped what they were doing. Those that were actively fighting the cultist backed away. Others focused on pulling their injured lizard companions away to safety.
King Scalea alone stood close enough to pounce.
Charlie realized what was going on. “Wait! It’s dangerous!” he tried to warn the scaler king.
But if he heard Charlie, he didn’t stop. He leapt toward Arroane. The man that he could faintly hear Vetica and Merlin worrying about in the background.
Scalea stretched his jaw wide as he flew toward his prey. Arroane smirked.
“Death Hex Damnation!” Arroane’s hand shot forward.
Charlie’s breath caught. “No!” he shouted, already working to protect King Scalea.
The dungeon quaked.
A wall of rock broke through the ground to separate the two combatants.
King Scalea recoiled, rotating his tail to change his direction and not slam into the wall. The scaler landed on the wall instead. His momentum dying. Arroane, however, didn’t stop. His hand, with the small, scary hex still within his palm, pressed toward the wall. Charlie watched, horrified, as the hex seemed to eat right through the wall. Arroane’s hand jutted through the opening and grabbed the scaler king by the throat. The rest of the rock wall turned a deep black. Cracks formed along it, and then it crumbled.
“Ar—” King Scalea started to roar, but Arroane’s grip tightened. The other scalers froze. They weren’t sure whether to attack or remain where they were. Their king was in danger, but he’d ordered them aside.
King Scalea struggled. His tail whipped violently in the air. Charlie readied another attack. Anything to catch Arroane off guard and get him to release King Scalea. But just as he started to, the man spoke. It sent a chill through Charlie.
“You’re a strange dungeon. Intervening to protect the lives of such a weak creature. It’s amusing,” Arroane said. He looked up, and his eyes locked on the very spot where Charlie was watching from. Charlie wasn’t physically there, of course. His consciousness simply floated above as he watched the fight below. But somehow, someway, Arroane’s eyes were staring back at him. It was unnerving. “Right now, you’re afraid. You’re wondering how you can save this creature. The truth is you can’t. It’s going to die whether you like it or not. You can get angry or upset. You can whine and send more of them to fight me. But this creature has to die. Zero casualties? In a dungeon? That’s just not right. So, let’s kick things off already.”
“Sir…who are you talking to?” John asked.
A series of cracks formed along King Scalea’s skin. What was this hex? How did it work? How could he stop it?
Charlie wracked his brain for answers.
It hit him. Merlin.
He cried out to his friends. There was only one way to fix this. “I need your help! Fast!” Charlie said. “I need you to show me something!”
He could feel Merlin and Vetica on either side of him. “What is it?” Vetica asked.
Charlie told them what he needed to do.
Arroane
The feel of decaying flesh excited him. He’d killed many beasts in the past. It was only natural when you cleared dungeons for a living. Of course, that life was long behind him, but it didn’t stop him from savoring the moment. This dungeon was certainly intelligent, and he was sure it would be upset with his actions. It had tried to save this creature. But Arroane needed to send a message. A message an intelligent dungeon core could understand. He was here, and he was serious. The dungeon core had to learn that now, even if Arroane had to upset it temporarily.
He wasn’t using the full power of his hex. This was a much weaker version. He needed to put on a show. To display the creature’s discomfort in its final moments. The scaler grimaced in pain, but it was losing the fight in it. Its stumped tail no longer flung around as vigorously; its body no longer shook as violently. Whether it was because of a lack of oxygen, or the acceptance of its fate, he didn’t know or care.
“Um, sir?” John said beside him.
Arroane chuckled. “Don’t worry about the other creatures. This fight is over. They don’t pose a threat now.”
John stepped forward and pointed at the ground. “No, I’m talking about that. Look at the ground.”
Arroane looked at him and then followed his finger.
His eyes shot open as he read the crudely drawn message in the dirt.
“I hav ur cage monster.
Put King Scaly dwn now.
Or I kil—hurt cage monster.”
Arroane shook his head. “That’s not possible.” He looked up at the presence floating above. “You’re lying.”
“No lie.”
“Sir, how do they even know about the creature?” John asked, reading it himself.
Arroane released his grip on the scaler, and it fell to the ground, gasping for air. The effects of his hex faded away. The scars on the scaler didn’t disappear, but it wouldn’t die. Not for several more moments, at least.
“It seems negotiations are in order. I’ll spare this creature for now. You’ll leave the creature in the cage alone as well if you value the lives of these creatures. I’m coming to you. We’re going to talk,” Arroane declared.
A horde of scalers approached from the hallway opposite the one they had come from. There were easily thirty of them. A scaler with part of its skull visible led them. It walked forward, ignoring him, and nudged the scaler Arroane had dropped on the ground. A few others approached to help it, and they pushed it onto the skull headed scaler’s back. The other scalers dragged the remaining injured scalers. They then returned down the hallway they had just emerged from and scurried deeper inside.
John looked around. “We lost more men. They aren’t in any condition to travel. What now, sir? And who were you talking to?” he asked.
Arroane ignored his question. Besides John, there were three others. The rest were unconscious, captured, or had fled. “Leave the injured and return to camp now. Check on the creature and secure it by any means necessary.”
“But sir! They took some of our men!”
“Do it. That’s an order!” Arroane shouted. He gave John and the three others time to clear out, and then he turned to face the hallway ahead. He wasn’t sure if he was still being watched or not. To be honest, he doubted the dungeon’s forces could have overtaken Group A. He’d raided plenty of dungeons with them recently in search of an intelligent core. He knew they were competent. But the dungeon had revealed something about itself. It had been watching their camp. If he allowed it to believe he’d fallen for the lie, he’d be able to catch it off guard and gain an advantage.
He knelt and pressed a hand onto the dungeon ground. “No more traps. No more games. I’m heading to the center of the dungeon, undisturbed from this point forward.” There was a rush as the magic coursed from his body and his hex activated.
Long, dark fissures formed in the dungeon’s ground like veins. They shot forward, eating away at the dungeon ahead. Whatever traps lay ahead would be wiped out. He’d save his strength just in case things got interesting.
Arroane cracked his neck. This dungeon thought it had the advantage, but he’d conquered hundreds of dungeons. One of this caliber was nothing compared to him.
After all, once upon a time, he’d traveled alongside the hero of Aysela.
Once upon a time, he’d saved the world.